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https://archive.org/details/ghettocomediesOOzang 








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GHETTO COMEDIES 


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WORKS 


OF 


ISRAEL ZANGWILL 


GHETTO COMEDIES 





THE AMERICAN JEWISH BOOK COMPANY 
NEW YORK 
1921 


CoPpYRIGHT, 1907, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Printed by 
Tue Lorp BALTIMORE PREss 
Baltimore, Md. 


NOTE 


SIMULTANEOUSLY with the publication of these 
‘Ghetto Comedies’ a fresh edition of my ‘Ghetto 
Tragedies’ is issued, with the original title restored. 
In the old definition a comedy could be distin- 
guished from a tragedy by its happy ending. 
Dante’s Hell and Purgatory could thus appertain 
to a ‘comedy.’ This is a crude conception of the 
distinction between Tragedy and Comedy, which I 
have ventured to disregard, particularly in the last 


of these otherwise unassuming stories. 
I. Z. 


SHOTTERMILL, February, 1907. 


j vii 





COUN LDN Le) 


THE MODEL OF SORROWS : : 4 : . . I 
ANGLICIZATION ; ‘ ‘ : : : : Ee, 
THE JEWISH TRINITY , : : : ; : Bs fox, 
THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER d 3 TONE Se ¥ 
THE RED MARK _. ; ‘ : ; : : ria og 
THE BEARER OF BURDENS . ; é A ‘ Wo ero 
THE LUFTMENSCH . . : ; ‘ ° . ee CE 
THE TuG OF LOVE . : : 4 ; . ° Maso $ | 
THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’. . . . : ° ° (293 
THE CONVERTS ‘ ‘ } ‘ Z : : a ick ie 
hey WEDLOCK . : . : ‘ . : ee yt 
ELIJAH’S GOBLET . . . : . : : ape te 
THE HIRELINGS ° . . . . ° ‘ - 399 
SAMOOBORONA . ; ! . . . . 4 be iy, 








THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


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4 ae 


tae MODEL OF SORROWS 


CHAPTER I 
HOW I FOUND THE MODEL 


I CANNOT pretend that my ambition to paint the Man 
of Sorrows had any religious inspiration, though I fear 
my dear old dad at the Parsonage at first took it as 
asign of awakening grace. And yet, as an artist, I 
have always been loath to draw a line between the spir- 
itual and the beautiful; for I have ever held that the 
beautiful has in it the same infinite element as forms the 
essence of religion. But I cannot explain very intel- 
ligibly what I mean, for my brush is the only instru- 
ment through which I can speak. And if I am here 
paradoxically proposing to use my pen to explain what 
my brush failed to make clear, it is because the criti- 
cism with which my picture of the Man of Sorrows has 
been assailed drives me to this attempt at verbal elucida- 
tion. My picture, let us suppose, is half-articulate; 
perhaps my pen can manage to say the other half, 
especially as this other half mainly consists of things 


told me and things seen. 
3 


4 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


And in the first place, let me explain that the concep- 
tion of the picture which now hangs in its gilded frame 
is far from the conception with which I started — was, 
in fact, the ultimate stage of an evolution — for I be- 
gan with nothing deeper in my mind than to image a 
realistic Christ, the Christ who sat in the synagogue 
of Jerusalem, or walked about the shores of Galilee. 
As a painter in love with the modern, it seemed to me 
that, despite the innumerable representations of Him 
by the masters of all nations, few, if any, had sought 
their inspiration in reality. Each nation had uncon- 
sclously given Him its own national type, and though 
there was a subtle truth in this, for what each nation 
worshipped was truly the God made over again in its 
own highest image, this was not the truth after which 
I was seeking. 

I started by rejecting the blonde, beardless type which 
Da Vinci and others have imposed upon the world, 
for Christ, to begin with, must be a Jew. And even 
when, in the course of my researches for a Jewish model, 
I became aware that there were blonde types, too, these 
seemed to me essentially Teutonic. A characteristic 
of the Oriental face, as I figured it, was a sombre maj- 
esty, as of the rabbis of Rembrandt, the very antithesis 
of the ruddy gods of Walhalla. The characteristic 
Jewish face must suggest more of the Arab than of the 
Goth. 

I do not know if the lay reader understands how 


HOW I FOUND THE MODEL 5 


momentous to the artist is his model, how dependent 
he is on the accident of finding his creation already 
anticipated, or at least shadowed forth, in Nature. To 
me, as a realist, it was particularly necessary to find 
in Nature the original, without which no artist can 
ever produce those subtle mwances which give the full 
sense of life. After which, if I say that my aim is not 
to copy, but to interpret and transfigure, I suppose 
I shall again seem to be self-contradictory. But that, 
again, must be put down to my fumbling pen-strokes. 
Perhaps I ought to have gone to Palestine in search 
of the ideal model, but then my father’s failing health 
kept me within a brief railway run of the Parsonage. 
Besides, I understood that the dispersion of the Jews 
everywhere made it possible to find Jewish types any- 
where, and especially in London, to which flowed all 
the streams of the Exile. But long days of hunting 
in the Jewish quarter left me despairing. I could find 
types of all the Apostles, but never of the Master. 
Running down one week-end to Brighton to recuper- 
ate, I joined the Church Parade on the lawns. It was 
a sunny morning in early November, and I admired 
the three great even stretches of grass, sea, and sky, 
making up a picture that was unspoiled even by the 
stuccoed boarding-houses. The parasols fluttered amid 
the vast crowd of promenaders like a swarm of brilliant 
butterflies. I noted with amusement that the Church 
Parade was guarded by beadles from the intrusion of 


6 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


the ill-dressed, and the spectacle of over-dressed Jews 
paradoxically partaking in it reminded me of the object 
of my search. In vain my eye roved among these; 
their figures were strangely lacking in the dignity and 
beauty which I had found among the poorest. Suddenly 
I came upon a sight that made my heart leap. There, 
squatting oddly enough on the pavement-curb of a 
street opposite the lawns, sat a frowsy, gaberdined Jew. 
Vividly set between the tiny green cockle-shell hat on 
his head and the long uncombed black beard was the 
face of my desire. ‘The head was bowed towards the 
earth; it did not even turn towards the gay crowd, as if 
the mere spectacle was beadle-barred. I was about to 
accost this strange creature who sat there so immovably, 
when a venerable Royal Academician who resides at 
Hove came towards me with hearty hand outstretched, 
and bore me along in the stream of his conversation 
and geniality. I looked back yearningly; it was as if 
the Academy was dragging me away from true Art. 

‘I think, if you don’t mind, I’ll get that old chap’s 
address,’ I said. 

He looked back and shook his head in laughing re- 
proof. 

‘Another study in dirt and ugliness! Oh, you young- 
sters !’ 

My heart grew hot against his smug satisfaction with 
his own conventional patterns and prettinesses. 

‘Behind that ugliness and dirt I see the Christ,’ I 


HOW I FOUND THE MODEL 7 


retorted. ‘I certainly did not see Him in the Church 
Parade.’ 

‘Have you gone on the religious lay now?’ he asked, 
with a burst of his bluff laughter. 

‘No, but I’m going,’ I said, and turned back. 

I stood, pretending to watch the gay parasols, but 
furtively studying my Jew. Yes, in that odd figure, 
so strangely seated on the pavement, I had chanced 
on the very features, the haunting sadness and mystery 
of which I had been so long in quest. I wondered at 
the simplicity with which he was able to maintain a 
pose so essentially undignified. I told myself I beheld 
the East squatted broodingly as on a divan, while the 
West paraded with parasol and Prayer-Book. I won- 
dered that the beadles were unobservant of him. Were 
they content with his abstention from the holy ground 
of the Church Parade, and the less sacred seats on the 
promenade without, or would they, if their eyes drew 
towards him, move him on from further profaning 
those frigidly respectable windows and stuccoed portals ? 

At last I said: ‘Good-morning.’? And he rose hur- 
riedly and began to move away uncomplainingly, as 
one used to being hounded from everywhere. 

‘Guten Morgen,’ I said in German, with a happy 
inspiration, for in my futile search in London I had 
found that a corrupt German called Yiddish usually 
proved a means of communication. 

He paused, as if reassured. ‘Gu? Morgen,’ he mur- 


8 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


mured; and then I saw that his stature was kingly, 
like that of the sons of Anak, and his manner a strange 
blend of majesty and humility. 

‘Pardon me,’ I went on, in my scrupulously worst 
German, ‘may I ask you a question?’ 

He made a curious movement of acquiescence, com- 
pounded of a shrug and a slight uplifting of his palms. 

‘Are you in need of work ?’ 

‘And why do you wish to know?’ he replied, answer- 
ing, as I had already found was the Jewish way, one 
question by another. 

‘I thought I could find you some,’ I said. 

‘Have you scrolls of the Law for me.to write?’ he 
replied incredulously. ‘You are not even a Jew.’ 

‘Still, there may be something,’ I replied. ‘Let us 
walk along.’ 

I felt that the beadle’s eye was at last drawn to us 
both, and I hurried my model down a side-street. I 
noticed he hobbled as if footsore. He did not under- 
stand what I wanted, but he understood a pound a 
week, for he was starving, and when I said he must 
leave Brighton for London, he replied, awe-struck: ‘It 
is the finger of God.’ For in London were his wife 
and children. 

His name was Israel Quarriar, his country Russia. 

The picture was begun on Monday morning. Israel 
Quarriar’s presence dignified the studio. It was 
thrilling and stimulating to see his noble figure and 


HOW I FOUND THE MODEL 9 


tragic face, the head drooped humbly, the beard like 
a prophet’s. 

‘It is the finger of God,’ I, too, murmured, and fell 
to work, exalted. 

I worked, for the most part, in rapt silence — per- 
haps the model’s silence was contagious — but gradu- 
ally through the days I grew to communion with his 
shy soul, and piecemeal I learnt his sufferings. I give 
his story, so far as I can, in his own words, which I 
often paused to take down, when they were charac- 
teristic. 


CHAPTER II 
THE MODEL’S STORY 


I cAME here because Russia had grown intolerable to 
me. All my life, and during the lives of my parents, 
we Quarriars had been innkeepers, and thereby earned 
our bread. But Russia took away our livelihood for - 
herself, and created a monopoly. Thus we were left 
destitute. So what could I do with a large family? 
Of London and America I had long heard as places 
where they have compassion on foreigners. They are 
not countries like Russia, where Truth exists not. 
Secondly, my children also worried me greatly. They - 
are females, all the five, and a female in Russia, how- 
ever beautiful, good and clever she be, if she have no 
dowry, has to accept any offer of marriage, however 
uncongenial the man may be. These things conspired 
to drive me from Russia. So I turned everything into 
money, and realized three hundred and fifty roubles. 
People had told me that the whole journey to London 
should cost us two hundred roubles, so I concluded I 
should have one hundred and fifty roubles with which 
to begin life in the new country. It was very bitter to 
me to leave my Fatherland, but as the moujik says: 
‘Necessity brings everything.’ So we parted from our 

10 


THE MODELS STORY 11 


friends with many tears: little had we thought we 
should be so broken up in our old age. But what else 
could I do in such a wretched country? As the moujik 
says: ‘If the goat doesn’t want to go to market it is 
compelled to go.’ So I started for London. We 
travelled to Isota on the Austrian frontier. As we 
sat at the railway-station there, wondering how we 
were going to smuggle ourselves across the frontier, in 
came a benevolent-looking Jew with a long venerable 
beard, two very long ear-locks, and a girdle round his 
waist, washed his hands ostentatiously at the station 
tap, prayed aloud the Asher Yoizer with great fervour, 
and on finishing his prayer looked everyone expectantly 
in the eyes, and all responded ‘Amen.’ Then he drew 
up his coat-sleeve with great deliberation, extended 
his hand, gave me an effusive ‘Shalom Aleichem,’ and 
asked me how it went with me. Soon he began to 
talk about the frontier. Said he: ‘As you see me, an 
Ish kosher (a ritually correct man), I will do you a 
kindness, not for money, but for the sake of the Mitzvah 
(good deed).’ I began to smell a rat, and thought 
to myself, How comes it that you know I want the fron- 
tier? Your kindness is suspicious, for, as the moujik 
says: ‘The devil has guests.’ But if we need the thief, 
we cut him down even from the gallows. 

Such a necessary rascal proved Elzas Kazelia. I 
asked him how much he wanted to smuggle me across. 
He answered thus: ‘I see that you are a clever respec- 


12 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


table man, so look upon my beard and ear-locks, and 
you will understand that you will receive fair treat- 
ment from me. I want to earn a Mitzvah (good 
deed) and a little money thereby.’ 

Then he cautioned me not to leave the station and 
go out into the street, because in the street were to be 
found Jews without beards, who would inform on me 
and give me up to the police. ‘The world does not 
contain a sea of Kazelias,’ said he. (Would that it 
did not contain even that one!) 

Then he continued: ‘Shake out your money on the 
table, and we will see how much you have, and I will 
change it for you.’ 

‘Oh,’ said I, ‘I want first to find out the rate of ex- 
change.’ 

When Kazelia heard this, he gave a great spring 
and shrieked, ‘Hoi, hot! On account of Jews like you, 
the Messhiach (Messiah) can’t come, and the Redemp- 
tion of Israel is delayed. If you go out into the street, 
you will find a Jew without a beard, who will charge 
you more, and even take all your money away. I swear 
to you, as I should wish to see Messhiach Ben David, 
that I want to earn no money. I only desire your 
good, and so to lay up a little Mztzvah in heaven.’ 

Thereupon I changed my money with him. After- 
wards I found that he had swindled me to the extent 
of fifteen roubles. Elzas Kazelia is like to the Russian 
forest robber, who waylays even the peasant. 


THE MODEL’S STORY 13 


We began to talk further about the frontier. He 
wanted eighty roubles, and swore by his kosher Yid- 
dishkeit (ritually pure Judaism) that the affair would 
cost him seventy-five. 

Thereupon I became sorely troubled, because I had 
understood it would only cost us twenty roubles for all 
of us, and sol told him. Said he: ‘If you seek others 
with short beards, they will take twice as much from 
you.’ 
murderer. ‘The second promised to do it cheaper, said 
that Kazelia was a robber, and promised to meet me 
at the railway station. 

Immediately I left, Elzas Kazelia, the kosher Jew, 
went to the police, and informed them that I and my 
family were running away from Russia, and were going 


But I went out into the street to seek a second 


to London; and we were at once arrested, and thrown 
bag and baggage into a filthy cell, lighted only by an 
iron grating in the door. No food or drink was allowed 
us, as though we were the greatest criminals. Such 
is Russian humanity, to starve innocent people. The 
little provender we had in a bag scarcely kept us from 
fainting with hunger. On the second day Kazelia 
sent two Jews with beards. Suddenly I heard the 
door unlock, and they appeared saying: ‘We have 
come to do you a favour, but not for nothing. If your 
life and the lives of your family are dear to you, we 
advise you to give the police seventy roubles, and we 
want ten roubles for our kindness, and you must employ 


14 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


Kazelia to take you over the frontier for eighty roubles, 
otherwise the police will not be bribed. If you refuse, 
you are lost.’ 

Well, how could I answer? How could one give 
away the last kopeck and arrive penniless in a strange 
land? Every rouble taken from us was like a piece of 
our life. So my people and I began to weep and to beg 
for pity. ‘Have compassion,’ we cried. Answered 
they: ‘In a frontier town compassion dwells not. 
Give money. ‘That will bring compassion.’ And they 
slammed the door, and we were locked in once more. 
Tears and cries helped nothing. My children wept 
agonizedly. Oh, truth, truth! Russia, Russia! How 
scurvily you handle the guiltless! For an enlightened 
land to be thus! 

‘Father, father,’ the children said, ‘give away every- 
thing so that we die not in this cell of fear and hunger.’ 

But even had I wished, I could do nothing from 
behind barred doors. Our shouting was useless. At 
last I attracted a warder who was watching in the 
corridor. ‘Bring me a Jew,’ I cried; ‘I wish to tell 
him of our plight.’ And he answered: ‘Hold your 
peace if you don’t want your teeth knocked out. Recog- 
nize that you are a prisoner. You know well what is 
required of you.’ 

Yes, I thought, my money or my life. 

On the third day our sufferings became almost in- 
supportable, and the Russian cold seized on our bodies, 


THE MODELS STORY 16 


and our strength began to fail. We looked upon the 
cell as our tomb, and on Kazelia as the Angel of Death. 
Here, it seemed, we were to die of hunger. We lost 
hope of seeing the sun. For well we know Russia. 
Who seeks Truth finds Death more easily. As the 
Russian proverb says, ‘If you want to know Truth, 
you will know Death.’ 

At length the warder seemed to take pity on our cries, 
and brought again the two Jews. ‘For the last time we 
tell you. Give us money, and we will do you a kindness. 
We have been seized with compassion for your family.’ 

So I said no more, but gave them all they asked, and 
Elzas Kazelia came and said to me rebukingly: ‘It is 
a characteristic of the Jew never to part with his money 
unless chastised.’ I said to Elzas Kazelia: ‘I thought 
you were an honourable, pious Jew. How could you 
treat a poor family so?’ 

He answered me: ‘An honourable, pious Jew must 
also make a little money.’ 

Thereupon he conducted us from the prison, and sent 
for a conveyance. No sooner had we seated ourselves 
than he demanded six roubles. Well, what could I do? 
I had fallen among thieves, and must part with my 
money. We drove to a small room, and remained there 
two hours, for which we had to pay three roubles, as the 
preparations for our crossing were apparently incom- 
plete. When we finally got to the frontier — in this 
case a shallow river —they warned us not even to 


16 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


sneeze, for if the soldiers heard we should be shot with- 
out more ado. I had to strip in order to wade through 
the water, and several men carried over my family. 
My two bundles, with all my belongings, consisting of 
clothes and household treasures, remained, however, 
on the Russian side. Suddenly a wild disorder arose. 
‘The soldiers! The soldiers! Hide! Hide! In the 
bushes! In the bushes!’ 

When all was still again — though no soldiers became 
visible — the men went back for the baggage, but 
brought back only one bundle. The other, worth over 
a hundred roubles, had disappeared. Wailing helped 
nothing. Kazelia said: ‘Hold your peace. Here, too, 
dangers lurk.’ 

I understood the game, but felt completely helpless 
in his hands. He drove us to his house, and our re- 
maining bundle was deposited there. Later, when I 
walked into the town, I went to the Rabbi and com- 
plained. Said he: ‘What can I do with such mur- 
derers? You must reconcile yourself to the loss.’ 

I went back to my family at Kazelia’s house, and he 
cautioned me against going into the street. On my 
way I had met a man who said he would charge twenty- 
eight roubles each for our journey to London. So 
Kazelia was evidently afraid I might yet fall into hon- 
ester hands. 

Then we began to talk with him of London, for it is 
better to deal with the devil you know than the devil 


THE MODEL’S STORY 17 


you don’t know. Said he: ‘It will cost you thirty- 
three roubles each.’ I said: ‘I have had an offer of 
twenty-eight roubles, but you I will give thirty.’ ‘Hoi, 
hoi!’ shrieked he. ‘On a Jew a lesson is lost. It is 
just as at the frontier: you wouldn’t give eighty roubles, 
and it cost you double. You want the same again. 
One daren’t do a Jew a favour.’ 

So I held my peace, and accepted his terms. But I 
saw I should be twenty-five roubles short of what was 
required to finish the journey. Said Kazelia: ‘I can 
do you a favour: I can borrow twenty-five roubles on 
your luggage at the railway, and when you get to Lon- 
don you can repay.’ And he took the bundle, and 
conveyed it to the railway. What he did there I know 
not. He came back, and told me he had done me a 
turn. (This time it seemed a good one.) He then 
took envelopes, and placed in each the amount I was 
to pay at each stage of the journey. So at last we took 
train and rode off. And at each place I paid the dues 
from its particular envelope. ‘The children were offered 
food by our fellow-passengers, though they could only 
take it when it was kosher, and this enabled us to keep 
our pride. There was one kind Jewess from Lemberg 
with a heart of gold and delicious rings of sausages. 

When we arrived at Leipsic they told me the amount 
was twelve marks short. So we missed our train, not 
knowing what to do, as I had now no money whatever 
but what was in the envelopes. ‘The officials ordered 

Cc 


18 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


us from the station. So we went out and walked about 
Leipsic; we attracted the suspicion of the police, and 
they wanted to arrest us. But we pleaded our inno- 
cence, and they let us go. So we retired into a narrow 
dark street, and sat down by a blank wall, and told 
each other not to murmur. We sat together through 
the whole rainy night, the rain mingling with our tears. 

When day broke I thought of a plan. I took twelve 
marks from the envelope containing the ship’s money, 
and ran back to the station, and took tickets to Rotter- 
dam, and so got to the end of our overland journey. 
When we got to the ship, they led us all into a shed 
like cattle. One of the Kazelia conspirators — for his 
arm reaches over Europe — called us into his office, and 
said: ‘How much money have you?’ I shook out the 
money from the envelopes on the table. Said he: 
‘The amount is twelve marks short.’ He had had 
advices, he said, from Kazelia that I would bring a 
certain amount, and I didn’t have it. 

‘Here you can stay to-night. To-morrow you go 
back.’ So he played on my ignorance, for I was paying 
at every stage in excess of the legal fares. But I knew 
not what powers he had. Every official was a possible 
disaster. We hardly lived till the day. 

Then I began to beg him to take my Tallis and 
Tephillin (praying-shawl and phylacteries) for the 
twelve marks. Said he: ‘I have no use for them; 
you must go back.’ With difficulty I got his permission 


THE MODEL’S STORY 19 


to go out into the town, and I took my Tallis and 
Tephillin, and went into a Shool (synagogue), and I 
begged someone to buy them. But a good man came 
up, and would not permit the sale. He took out 
twelve marks and gave them to me. I begged him to 
give me his address that I might be able to repay him. 
Said he: ‘I desire neither thanks nor money.’ Thus 
was I able to replace the amount lacking. 

We embarked without a bit of bread or a farthing 
in money. We arrived in London at nine o’clock in 
the morning, penniless and without luggage, whereas I 
had calculated to have at least one hundred and fifty 
roubles and my household stuff. I had a friend’s 
address, and we all went to look for him, but found 
that he had left London for America. We walked 
about all day till eight o’clock at night. The children 
could scarcely drag along from hunger and weariness. 
At last we sat down on the steps of a house in Wellclose 
Square. I looked about, and saw a building which I 
took to be a Shool (synagogue), as there were Hebrew 
posters stuck outside. I approached it. An old Jew 
with a long grey beard came to meet me, and began 
to speak with me. I understood soon what sort of a 
person he was, and: turned away. This Meshummad 
(converted Jew) persisted, tempting me sorely with 
offers of food and drink for the family, and further help. 
I said: ‘I want nothing of you, nor do I desire your 
acquaintance.’ 


20 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


‘I went back to my family. The children sat crying 
for food. They attracted the attention of a man, 
Baruch Zezangski (25, Ship Alley), and he went away, 
returning with bread and fish. When the children 
saw this, they rejoiced exceedingly, and seized the 
man’s hand to kiss it. Meanwhile darkness fell, and 
there was nowhere to pass the night. So I begged the 
man to find me a lodging for the night. He led us to 
a cellar in Ship Alley. It was pitch black. They say 
there is a hell. This may or may not be, but more of 
a hell than the night we passed in this cellar one does 
not require. Every vile thing in the world seemed to 
have taken up its abode therein. We sat the whole 
night sweeping the vermin from us. After a year of 
horror — as it seemed —came the dawn. In the morn- 
ing entered the landlord, and demanded a shilling. I 
had not a farthing, but I had a leather bag which I gave 
him for the night’s lodging. I begged him to let me a 
room in the house. So he let me a small back room 
upstairs, the size of a table, at three and sixpence a week. 
He relied onour collecting his rent from the kind-hearted. 
We entered the empty room with joy, and sat down on 
the floor. We remained the whole day without bread. 
The children managed to get a crust now and again 
from other lodgers, but all day long they cried for food, 
and at night they cried because they had nothing to 
sleep on. I asked our landlord if he knew of any work 
we could do. He said he would see what could be 


THE MODEL’S STORY 21 


done. Next day he went out, and returned with a 
heap of linen to be washed. The family set to work 
at once, but I am sure my wife washed the things 
less with water than with tears. Oh, Kazelia! We 
washed the whole week, the landlord each day bringing 
bread and washing. At the end of the week he said: 
“You have worked out your rent, and have nothing to 
pay.’ I should think not indeed! 

My eldest daughter was fortunate enough to get a 
place at a tailor’s for four shillings a week, and the 
others sought washing and scrubbing. So each day 
we had bread, and at the end of the week rent. Bread 
and water alone formed our sustenance. But we were 
very grateful all the same. When the holidays came 
on, my daughter fell out of work. I heard a word 
‘slack.’ I inquired, ‘What is the meaning of the word 
“slack” ?’ Then my daughter told me that it means 
schlecht (bad). ‘There is nothing to be earned. Now, 
what should Ido? I had no means of living. The 
children cried for bread and something to sleep on. 
Still we lived somehow till Rosh Hashanah (New 
Year), hoping it would indeed be a New Year. 

It was Erev Yomiov (the day before the holiday), 
and no washing was to be had. We struggled as before 
death. The landlord of the house came in. He said 
to me: ‘Aren’t you ashamed? Can’t you see your 
children have scarcely strength to live? Why have 
you not compassion on your little ones? Go to the 


22 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


Charity Board. ‘There you will receive help.’ Believe 
me, I would rather have died. But the little ones were 
starving, and their cries wrung me. So I went to a 
Charity Board. I said, weeping: ‘My children are 
perishing for a morsel of bread. I can no longer look 
upon their sufferings.’ And the Board answered: 
‘After Yomtov we will send you back to Russia.’ ‘But 
meanwhile,’ I answered, ‘the children want food.’ 
Whereupon one of the Board struck a bell, and in came 
a stalwart Angel of Death, who seized me by the arm 
so that it ached all day, and thrust me through the 
door. I went out, my eyes blinded with tears, so that 
I could not see where I went. It was long before 
I found my way back to Ship Alley. My wife and 
daughters already thought I had drowned myself for 
trouble. Such was our plight the Eve of the Day of 
Atonement, and not a morsel of bread to ‘take in’ 
the fast with! But just at the worst a woman from 
next door came in, and engaged one of my daughters 
to look after a little child during the fast (while she 
was in the synagogue) at a wage of tenpence, paid in 
advance. With joy we expended it all on bread, and 
then we prayed that the Day of Atonement should en- 
dure long, so that we could fast long, and have no need 
to buy food; for as the moujik says, ‘If one had no 
mouth, one could wear a golden coat.’ 

I went to the Jews’ Free School, which was turned 
into a synagogue, and passed the whole day in tearful 


THE MODELS STORY 23 


supplication. When I came home at night my wife 
sat and wept. I asked her why she wept. She an- 
swered: ‘Why have you led me to such a land, where 
even prayer costs money — at least, for women? The 
whole day I went from one Shool to another, but they 
would not let me in. At last I went to the Shool of the 
“Sons of the Soul,” where pray the pious Jews, with 
beards and ear-locks, and even there I was not allowed 
in. The heathen policeman begged for me, and said to 
them: ‘“‘Shame on you not to let the poor woman in.” 
The Gabbai (treasurer) answered: “If one hasn’t 


money, one sits at home.”’’ 


And my wife said to him, 
weeping: ‘My tears be on your head,’ and went home, 
and remained home the whole day weeping. With a 
woman Yom Kippur is a wonder-working day. She 
thought that her prayers might be heard, that God 
would consider her plight if she wept out her heart to 
Him in the Shool. But she was frustrated, and this 
was perhaps the greatest blow of all to her. Moreover, 
she was oppressed by her own brethren, and this was 
indeed bitter. If it had been the Gentile, she would 
have consoled herself with the thought, ‘We are in 
exile.’ When the fast was over, we had nothing but 
a little bread left to break our fast on, or to prepare for 
the next day’s fast. Nevertheless we sorrowfully slept. 
But the wretched day came again, and the elder chil- 
dren went out into the street to seek Parnosoh (employ- 
ment), and found scrubbing, that brought in nine- 


24 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


pence. We bought bread, and continued to live fur- 
ther. Likewise we obtained three shillings’ worth 
of washing to do, and were as rich as Rothschild. 
When Succoth (Tabernacles) came, again no money, no 
bread, and I went about the streets the whole day to 
seek for work. When I was asked what handicrafts- 
man I was, of course I had to say I ‘had no trade, for, 
foolishly enough, among the Jews in my part of 
Russia a trade is held in contempt, and when they 
wish to hold one up to scorn, they say to him: ‘Any- 
body can see you are a descendant of a handicrafts- 
man.’ 

I could write Holy Scrolls, indeed, and keep an inn, 
but what availed these accomplishments? As I found 
I could obtain no work, I went into the Shool of the 
‘Sons of the Soul.’ I seated myself next a man, and ~* 
we began to speak. I told him of my plight. Said he: 
‘I will give you advice. Call on our Rabbi. He is 
a very fine man.’ 

I did so. As I entered he sat in company with an- 
other man, holding his Lulov and Esrog (palm and 
citron). ‘What do you want?’ I couldn’t answer 
him, my heart was so oppressed, but suddenly my tears 
gushed forth. It seemed to me help was at hand. 
I felt assured of sympathy, if of nothing else. I told 
him we were perishing for want of bread, and asked 
him to give me advice. He answered nothing. He 
turned to the man, and spoke concerning the Taber- 


THE MODEL’S STORY 25 


nacle, and the Citron. He took no further notice of 
me, but left me standing. 

So I understood he was no better than Elzas Kazelia. 
And this is a Rabbi! As I saw I might as well have 
talked to the wall, I left the room without a word from 
him. As the moujik would say: ‘Sad and bitter is 
the poor man’s lot. It is better to lie in the dark tomb 
and not to see the sunlit world than to be a poor man 
and be compelled to beg for money.’ 

I came home, where my family was waiting patiently 
for my return with bread. I said: ‘Good Yomtov,’ 
weeping, for they looked scarcely alive, having been 
without a morsel of food that day. 

So we tried to sleep, but hunger would not permit 
it, but demanded his due. ‘Hunger, you old fool, 
why don’t you let us sleep?’ But he refused to be talked 
over. So we passed the night. When day came the 
little children began to cry: ‘Father, let us go. We 
will beg bread in the streets. Wedieof hunger. Don’t 
hold us back.’ 

When the mother heard them speak of begging in 
the streets, she swooned, whereupon arose a great 
clamour among the children. When at length we 
brought her to, she reproached us bitterly for restoring 
her‘to life. ‘I would rather have died than hear you 
speak of begging in the streets — rather see my children 
die of hunger before my eyes.’ This speech of the 
mother caused them to forget their hunger, and they sat 


26 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


and wept together. On hearing the weeping, a man 
from next door, Gershon Katcol, came in to see what was 
the matter. He looked around, and his heart went out 
to us. So he went away, and returned speedily with 
bread and fish and tea and sugar, and went away 
again, returning with five shillings. He said: ‘This I 
lend you.’ Later he came back with a man, Nathan 
Beck, who inquired into our story, and took away the 
three little ones to stay with him. Afterwards, when 
I called to see them in his house in St. George’s Road, 
they hid themselves from me, being afraid I should 
want them to return to endure again the pangs of 
hunger. It was bitter to think that a stranger should 
have the care of my children, and that they should shun 
me as one shuns a forest-robber. 

After Yomtov I went to Grunbach, the shipping 
agent, to see whether my luggage had arrived, as I had 
understood from Kazelia that it would get here in a 
month’s time. I showed my pawn-ticket, and inquired 
concerning it. Said he: ‘Your luggage won’t come 
to London, only to Rotterdam. If you like, I will 
- write a letter to inquire if it is at Rotterdam, and how 
much money is due to redeem it.’ I told him I had 
borrowed twenty-five roubles on it. Whereupon he 
calculated that it would cost me £4 6s., including freight, 
to redeem it. But I told him to write and ask. Some 
days later a letter came from Rotterdam stating the cost 
at eighty-three roubles (£8 13s.), irrespective of freight 


THE MODEL’S STORY 27 


dues. When I heard this, I was astounded, and I 
immediately wrote to Kazelia: ‘Why do you behave 
like a forest-robber, giving me only twenty-five roubles 
where you got eighty-threee Answered he: ‘Shame 
on you to write such a letter! Haven’t you been in 
my house, and seen what an honourable Jew I am? 
Shame on you! To such men as you one can’t do a 
favour. Do you think there are a sea of Kazelias in 
the world? You are all thick-headed. You can’t 
read a letter. I only took fifty-four roubles on the 
luggage; I had to recoup myself because I lost money 
through sending you to London. I calculated my loss, 
and only took what was due to me.’ I showed the 
letter to Grunbach, and he wrote again to Rotterdam, 
_and they answered that they knew nothing of a Kazelia. 
I must pay the £8 13s. if I wanted my bundle. Well, 
what was to be done? The weather grew colder. 
Hunger we had become inured to. But how could we 
pass the winter nights on the bare boards? I wrote 
again to Kazelia, but received no answer whatever. 
Day and night I went about asking advice concerning 
the luggage. Nobody could help me. | 

And as I thus stood in the middle of the sea, word 
came to me of a Landsmann (countryman) I had once 
helped to escape from the Russian army, in the days 
when I was happy and had still my inn. They said he 
had a great business in jewellery on a great highroad in 
front of the sea in a great town called Brighton. So 


28 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


I started off at once to talk to him — two days’ journey 
they said — for I knew he would help; and if not he, 
who? I would come to him as his Sabbath guest; 
he would surely fall upon my neck. The first night I 
slept in a barn with another tramp, who pointed me 
the way; but because I stopped to earn sixpence by 
chopping wood, lo! when Sabbath came I was still 
twelve miles away, and durst not profane the Sabbath 
by walking. So I lingered that Friday night in a vil- 
lage, thanking God I had at least the money for a bed, 
though it was sinful even to touch my money. And all 
next day, I know not why, the street-boys called me a 
Goy (heathen) and a fox — ‘Goy-Fox, Goy-Fox!’ — 
and they let off fireworks in my face. So I had to wander 
in the woods around, keeping within the Sabbath radius 
and when the three stars appeared in the sky I started 
for Brighton. But so footsore was I, I came there only 
at midnight, and could not search. And I sat down 
on a bench; it was very cold, but I was so tired. But 
the policeman came and drove me away —he was 
God’s messenger, for I should perchance have died — 
and a drunken female with a painted face told him to 
let me be, and gave me a shilling. How could I refuse? 
I slept again in a bed. And on the Sunday morning I 
started out, and walked all down in front of the sea; 
but my heart grew sick, for I saw the shops were shut. 
At last I saw a jewellery shop and my Landsmann’s 
name over it. It sparkled with gold and diamonds, and 


THE MODELS STORY 29 


little bills were spread over it — ‘Great sale! Great 
sale!’ Then I went joyfully to the door, but lo! it 
was bolted. So I knocked and knocked, and at last 
a woman came from above, and told me he lived in that 
road in Hove, where I found indeed my redeemer, but 
not my Landsmann. It was a great house, with steps 
up and steps down. I went down to a great door, and 
there came out a beautiful heathen female with a shin- 
ing white cap on her head and a shining white apron 
and she drove me away. 

‘Goy-Fox was yesterday,’ she shouted with wrath 
and slammed the door on my heart; and I sat down 
on the pavement without, and I became a pillar of 
salt, all frozen tears. But when I looked up, I saw the 
Angel of the Lord. 


CHAPTER III 
THE PICTURE EVOLVES 


SUCH was my model’s simple narrative, the homely 
realism of which appealed to me on my most imagina- 
tive side, for through all its sordid details stood revealed 
to me the tragedy of the Wandering Jew. Was it 
Heine or another who said ‘The people of Christ is 
the Christ of peoples’? At any rate, such was the idea 
that began to take possession of me as I painted away 
at the sorrow-haunted face of my much tried model — 
to paint, not the Christ that I had started out to paint, 
but the Christ incarnated in a race, suffering — and 
who knew that He did not suffer over again? — in its 
Passion. Yes, Israel Quarriar could still be my model, 
but after another conception altogether. 

It was an idea that called for no change in what I 
had already done. For I had worked mainly upon the 
head, and now that I purposed to clothe the figure in 
its native gaberdine, there would be little to re-draw. 
And so I fell to work with renewed intensity, feeling 
even safer now that I was painting and interpreting 
a real thing than when I was trying to reconstruct 
retrospectively the sacred figure that had walked in 
Galilee. 

30 


THE PICTURE EVOLVES 31 


And no sooner had I fallen to work on this new con- 
ception than I found everywhere how old it was. It 
appeared even to have Scriptural warrant, for from a 
brief report of a historical-theological lecture by a 
Protestant German Professor I gleaned that many of 
the passages in the Prophets which had been interpreted 
as pointing to a coming Messiah, really applied to 
Israel, the people. Israel it was whom Isaiah, in that 
famous fifty-third chapter, had described as ‘despised 
and rejected of men: a man of sorrows.’ Israel it was 
who bore the sins of the world. ‘He was oppressed and 
he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is 
brought as a lamb to the slaughter.’ Yes, Israel 
was the Man of Sorrows. And in this view the German 
Professor, I found, was only re-echoing Rabbinic 
opinion. My model proved a mine of lore upon this 
as upon so many other points. Even the Jewish ex- 
pectation of the Messiah, he had never shared, he said 
— that the Messhiach would come riding upon a white 
ass. Israel would be redeemed by itself, though his 
neighbours would have called the sentiment ‘epicurean.’ 

‘Whoever saves me is my Messhiach,’ he declared 
suddenly, and plucked at my hand to kiss it. 

‘Now, you shock me,’ I said, pushing him away. 

‘No, no,’ he said; ‘I agree with the word of the 
moujik: ‘“‘the good people are God.” ’ 

‘Then I suppose you are what is called a Zionist,’ 
I said. 


$2 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘now that you have saved me, I 
see that God works only through men. As for the 
Messhiach on the white ass, they do not really believe 
it, but they won’t let another believe otherwise. For 
my own part, when I say the prayer, ‘‘ Blessed be Thou 
who restorest the dead to life,” I always mean it of 
you.’ 

Such Oriental hyperbolic gratitude would have satis- 
fied the greediest benefactor, and was infinitely in 
excess of what he owed me. He seemed unconscious 
that he was doing work, journeying punctually long 
miles to my studio in any and every weather. It, is 
true that I early helped him to redeem his household 
gods, but could I do less for a man who had still no 
bed to sleep in? 

My recovery of the Rotterdam bundle served to unveil 
further complications. The agents at the East End 
charged him three shillings and sixpence per letter, 
and conducted the business with a fine legal delay. 
But it was not till Kazelia was eulogized by one of these 
gentry as a very fine man that both the model and I 
grew suspicious that the long chain of roguery reached 
even unto London, and that the confederates on this 
side were playing for time, so that the option should 
expire, and the railway sell the unredeemed luggage, 
which they would doubtless buy in cheap, making 
another profit. 

Ultimately Quarriar told me his second douse — 


THE PICTURE EVOLVES 33 


for the eldest was blind of one eye — was prepared to 
journey alone to Rotterdam, as the safest way of re- 
deeming the goods. Admiring her pluck, I added her 
fare to the expenses. 

One fine morning Israel appeared, transfigured with 
happiness. 

“When does man rejoice most?’ he cried. ‘When 
he loses and finds again.’ 

‘Ah, then you have got your bedding at last,’ I 
cried, now accustomed to his methods of expression. 
‘I hope you slept well.’ 

‘We could not sleep for blessing you,’ he replied un- 
expectedly. ‘As the Psalmist says, ‘‘All my bones 
praise the Lord!’’’ 

Not that the matter had gone smoothly even now. 
The Kazelia gang at Rotterdam denied all knowledge 
of the luggage, sent the girl to the railway, where the 
dues had now mounted to £10 6s. Again the cup was 
dashed from her lips, for I had only given her £9. But 
she went to the Rabbi, and offered if he supplied the 
balance to repledge the Sabbath silver candlesticks 
that were the one family heirloom in the bundle, and 
therewith repay him instantly. While she was pleading 
with him, in came a noble Jew, paid the balance, 
lodged her and fed her, and saw her safely on board 
with the long-lost treasures. 


CHAPTER IV 
I BECOME A SORTER 


As the weeks went by, my satisfaction with the pro- 
gress I was making was largely tempered by the know- 
ledge that after the completion of my picture my model 
would be thrown again on the pavement, and several 
times I fancied I detected him gazing at it sadly as if 
watching its advancing stages with a sort of hopeless 
fear. My anxiety about him and his family grew from 
day to day, but I could not see any possible way of 
helping him. He was touchingly faithful, anxious to 
please, and uncomplaining either of cold or hunger. 
Once I gave him a few shillings to purchase a second- 
hand pair of top-boots, which were necessary for the 
picture, and these he was able to procure in the Ghetto 
Sunday market for a minute sum, and he conscientiously 
returned me the balance — about two-thirds. 

I happened to have sold an English landscape to Sir 
Asher Aaronsberg, the famous philanthropist and 
picture-buyer of Middleton, then up in town in connec- 
tion with his Parliamentary duties, and knowing how 
indefatigably he was in touch with the London Jewish 
charities, I inquired whether some committee could not 
do anything to assist Quarriar. Sir Asher was not very 

34 


f BECOME A SORTER 35 


encouraging. The man knew no trade. However, if 
he would make application on the form enclosed and 
answer the questions, he would see what could be done. 
I saw that the details were duly filled in — the ages and 
sex of his five children, etc. 

But the committee came to the conclusion that the 
only thing they could do was to repatriate the man. 
‘Return to Russia!’ cried Israel in horror. 

Occasionally I inquired if any plan for the future 
had occurred to him. But he never raised the subject 
of his difficulties of his own accord, and his very silence, 
born, as it seemed to me, of the majestic dignity of the 
man, was infinitely pathetic. Now and again came a 
fitful gleam of light. His second daughter would be 
given a week’s work for a few shillings by his landlord, 
a working master-tailor in a small way, from whom he 
now rented two tiny rooms on the top floor. But that 
was only when there was an extra spasm of activity. 
His half-blind daughter would do a little washing, and 
the landlord would allow her the use of the back- 
yard. 

At last one day I found he had an idea, and an idea, 
moreover, that was carefully worked out in all its 
details. ‘The scheme was certainly a novel and sur- 
prising one to me, but it showed how the art of forcing 
a livelihood amid impossible circumstances had been 
cultivated among these people, forced for centuries 
to exist under impossible conditions. | 


36 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


Briefly his scheme was this. In the innumerable 
tailors’ workshops of his district great piles of cuttings 
of every kind and quality of cloth accumulated, and 
for the purchase of these cuttings a certain competition 
existed among a class of people known as _ piece- 
sorters. The sale of these cuttings by weight and for 
cash brought the master-tailors a pleasant little revenue 
which was the more prized as it was a sort of perquisite. 
The masters were able to command payment for their 
cuttings in advance, and the sorter would call to collect 
them week by week as they accumulated, till the amount 
he had advanced was exhausted. Quarriar would set up 
as a piece-sorter, and thus be able to employ his daugh- 
ters too. The whole family would find occupation in 
sorting out their purchases, and each quality and size 
would be readily saleable as raw material, to be woven 
again into the cheaper woollen materials. ‘Through 
the recommendation of his countrymen, there were 
several tailors who had readily agreed to give him the 
preference. His own landlord in particular had prom- 
ised to befriend him, and even now was allowing his 
cuttings to accumulate at some inconvenience, since 
he might have had ready money for them. Moreover, 
his friends had introduced him to a very respectable _ 
and honest sorter, who would take him into partnership, 
teach him, and allow his daughters to partake in the 
sorting, if he could put down twenty pounds! His 
friends would jointly advance him eight on the security 


I BECOME A SORTER 37 


of his silver candlesticks, if only he could raise the other 
twelve. 

This promising scheme took an incubus off my mind, 
and I hastened, somewhat revengefully, to acquaint the 
professional philanthropist, who had been so barren of 
ideas, with my intention to set up Quarriar as a piece- 
sorter. 

‘Ah,’ Sir Asher replied, unmoved. ‘Then you had 
better employ my man Conn; he does a good deal of 
this sort of work for me. He will find Quarriar a 
partner and professor.’ 

‘But Quarrier has already found a partner.’ I 
explained the scheme. 

‘The partner will cheat him. Twenty pounds is 
ridiculous. Five pounds is quite enough. Take my 
advice, and let it all go through Conn. If I wanted my 
portrait painted, you wouldn’t advise me to go to an 
amateur. By the way, here are the five pounds, but 
please don’t tell Conn I gave them. I don’t believe 
the money’ll do any good, and Conn will lose his respect 
for me.’ 

My interest in piece-sorting — an occupation I had 
never even heard of before—had grown abnormally, and 
I had gone into the figures and quantities — so many 
hundredweights, purchased at fifteen shillings, sorted 
into lots, and sold at various prices— with as. thorough- 
going an eagerness as if my own livelihood were to 
depend upon it. 


38 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


I confess I was now rather bewildered by so serious a 
difference of estimate as to the cost of a partnership, 
but I was inclined to set down Sir Asher’s scepticism 
to that pessimism which ‘is the penalty of professional 
philanthropy. 

On the other hand, I felt that whether the partnership 
was to cost five pounds or twenty, Quarriar’s future 
would be safer from Kazelias under the auspices of Sir 
Asher and his Conn. So I handed the latter the five 
pounds and bade him find Quarriar a guide, a philos- 
opher, and partner. 

With the advent of Conn, all my troubles began, 
and the picture passed into its third and last stage. 

I soon elicited that Quarriar and his friends were 
rather sorry Conn had been introduced into the matter. 
He was alleged to favour some people at the expense of 
others, and to be not at all popular among the people 
amid whom he worked. And altogether it was abun- 
-dantly clear that Quarriar would rather have gone on 
with the scheme in his own way without official inter- 
ference. 

Later, Sir Asher wrote to me direct that the partner 
put forward by the Quarriar faction was a shady cus- 
tomer; Conn had selected his own man, but even so 
there was little hope Quarriar’s future would be thus 
provided for. 

There seemed, moreover, a note of suspicion of 
Quarriar sounding underneath, but I found com- 


I BECOME A SORTER 39 


fort in the reflection that to Sir Asher my model was 
nothing more than the usual applicant for assistance, 
whereas to me who had lived for months in daily contact 
with him he was something infinitely more human. 

Spring was now nearing; I finished my picture early 
in March — after four months’ strenuous labour — 
shook hands with my model, and received his blessing. 
I was somewhat put out at learning that Conn had not 
yet given him the five pounds necessary to start him, 
as I had been hoping he might begin his new calling 
immediately the sittings ended. I gave him a small 
present to help tide over the time of waiting. 

But that tragic face on my own canvas remained to 
haunt me, to ask the question of his future, and few 
days elapsed ere I found myself starting out to visit 
him at his home. He lived near Ratcliffe Highway, a 
district which I found had none of that boisterous 
marine romance with which I had associated it. 

The house was a narrow building of at least the six- 
teenth century, with the number marked up in chalk 
on the rusty little door. I happened to have stumbled 
on the Jewish Passover. Quarriar was called down, 
evidently astonished and unprepared for my appear- 
ance at his humble abode, but he expressed pleasure, 
and led me up the narrow, steep stairway, whose ceiling 
almost touched my head as I climbed up after him. 
On the first floor the landlord, in festal raiment, inter- 
cepted us, introduced himself in English (which he 


40 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


spoke with pretentious inaccuracy), and, barring my 
further ascent, took possession of me, and led the way 
to his best parlour, as if it were entirely unbecoming 
for his tenant to receive a gentleman in his attic. 

He was a strapping young fellow, full of acuteness 
and vigour —a marked contrast to Quarriar’s droop- 
ing, dignified figure standing silently near by, and 
radiating poverty and suffering all the more in the 
little old panelled room, elegant with a big carved 
walnut cabinet, and gay with chromos and stuffed 
birds. Effusively the master-tailor painted himself 
as the champion of the poor fellow, and protested 
against this outside partnership that was being imposed 
on him by the notorious Conn. He himself, though 
he could scarcely afford it, was keeping his cuttings for 
him, in spite of tempting offers from other quarters, 
even of a shilling a sack. But of course he didn’t see 
why an outsider foisted upon him by a philanthropic 
factotum should benefit by this goodness of his. He 
discoursed to me in moved terms of the sorrows and 
privations of his tenants in their two tiny rooms up- 
stairs. And all the while Quarriar preserved his atti- 
tude of drooping dignity, saying no syllable except 
under special appeal. 

The landlord produced a goblet of rum and shrub 
for the benefit of the high-born visitor, and we all 
clinked glasses, the young master-tailor beaming at me 
unctuously as he set down his glass. 


I BECOME A SORTER 41 


‘I love company,’ he cried, with no apparent con- 
sciousness of impudent familiarity. 

I returned, however, to my central interest in life — 
the piece-sorting. It occurred to me afterwards that 
possibly I ought not to have insisted on such a secular 
subject on a Jewish holiday, but, after all, the landlord 
had broached it, and both men now entered most 
cordially into the discussion. The landlord started re- 
peating his lament — what a pity it would be if Quar- 
riar were really forced to accept Conn’s partner — when 
Quarriar timidly blurted out that he had already signed 
the deed of partnership, though he had not yet received 
the promised capital from Conn, nor spoken over mat- 
ters with the partner provided. ‘The landlord seemed 
astonished and angry at learning this, pricking up his 
ears curiously at the word ‘signed,’ and giving Quarriar 
a look of horror. 

‘Signed!’ he cried in Yiddish. ‘What hast thou 
signed ?’ 

At this point the landlord’s wife joined us in the 
parlour, with a pretty child in her arms and another 
shy one clinging to her skirts, completing the picture 
of felicity and prosperity, and throwing into greater 
shadow the attic to which I shortly afterwards climbed 
my way up the steep, airless stairs. I was hardly 
prepared for the depressing spectacle that awaited me 
at their summit. It was not so much the shabby, 
fusty rooms, devoid of everything save a couple of 


42 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


mattresses, a rickety wooden table, a chair or two, and 
a heap of Passover cakes, as the unloveliness of the 
three women who stood there, awkward and flushing 
before their important visitor. The wife-and-mother 
was dwarfed and black-wigged, the daughters were 
squat, with tallow-coloured round faces, vaguely sug- 
gestive of Caucasian peasants, while the sightless eye 
of the elder lent a final touch of ugliness. 

How little my academic friends know me who 
imagine I am allured by the ugly! It is only that 
sometimes I see through it a beauty that they are blind 
to. But here I confess I saw nothing but the ghastly 
misery and squalor, and I was oppressed almost to 
sickness as much by the scene as by the atmosphere. 

‘May I open a window?’ I could not help in- 
quiring. | 

The genial landlord, who had followed in my foot- 
steps, rushed to anticipate me, and when I could 
breathe more freely, I found something of the tragedy 
that had been swallowed in the sordidness. My 
eye fell again on the figure of my host standing in his 
drooping majesty, the droop being now necessary to 
avoid striking the ceiling with his kingly head. 

Surely a pretty wife and graceful daughters would 
have detracted from the splendour of the tragedy. 
Israel stood there, surrounded by all that was mean, 
yet losing nothing of his regal dignity — indeed the 
Man of Sorrows. 


I BECOME A SORTER 43 


Ere I left I suddenly remembered to ask after the 
three younger children. They were still with their 
kind benefactor, the father told me. 

‘I suppose you will resume possession of them when 
you make your fortune by the piece-sorting?’ I said. 

‘God grant it,’ he replied. ‘My bowels yearn for 
that day.’ 

Against my intention I slipped into his hand the 
final seven pounds I was prepared to pay. ‘If your 
partnership scheme fails, try again alone,’ I said. 

His blessings pursued me down the steep staircase. 
His womankind remained shy and dumb. 

When I got home I found a telegram from the Par- 
sonage. My father was dangerously ill. I left every- 
thing and hastened to help nurse him. My picture 
was not sent in to any Exhibition —I could not let it 
go without seeing it again, without a last touch or two. 
When, some months later, I returned to town, my first 
thought — inspired by the sight of my picture — was 
how Quarriar was faring. I left the studio and tele- 
phoned to Sir Asher Aaronsberg at the London office 
of his great Middleton business. 

‘That!’ His contempt penetrated even through the 
wires. ‘Smashed up long ago. Just as I expected.’ 

And the sneer of the professional philanthropist 
vibrated triumphantly. I was much upset, but ere I 
could recover my composure Sir Asher was cut off. 
In the evening I received a note saying Quarriar was 


44 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


a rogue, who had to flee from Russia for illicit sale of 
spirits. He had only two, at most three, elderly daugh- 
ters; the three younger girls were a myth. For a 
moment I was staggered; then all my faith in Israel 
returned. ‘Those three children a figment of the imagi- 
nation! Impossible! Why, I remembered countless 
little anecdotes about these very children, told me with 
the most evident fatherly pride. He had even repeated 
the quaint remarks the youngest had made on her 
return home from her first morning at the English school. 
Impossible that these things could have been invented 
on the spur of the moment. No; I could not possibly 
doubt the genuineness of my model’s spontaneous 
talk, especially as in those days he had had no reason 
for expecting anything from me, and he had most cer- 
tainly not demanded anything. And then I remembered 
that tragic passage describing how these three little 
ones, sheltered and fed by a kindly soul, hid themselves 
when their father came to see them, fearing to be re- 
claimed by him to hunger and cold. If Quarriar could 
invent these things, he was indeed a poet, for in the 
whole literature of starvation I could recall no better 
touch. 

I went to Sir Asher. He said that Quarriar, chal- 
lenged by Conn to produce these children, had refused 
to do so, or to answer any further questions. I found 
myself approving of his conduct. ‘A man ought not 
to be insulted by such absurd charges,’ I said. Sir 


I BECOME A SORTER 45 


Asher merely smiled and took up his usual unshak- 
able position behind his impregnable wall of official 
distrust and pessimism. 

I wrote to Quarriar to call on me without delay. He 
came immediately, his head bowed, his features care- 
worn and full of infinite suffering. Yes, it was true; 
the piece-sorting had failed. For a few weeks all had 
gone well. He had bought cuttings himself, had given 
the partner thrust upon him by Conn various sums for 
the same purpose. They had worked together, sorting 
in a cellar rented for the purpose, of which his partner 
kept the key. So smoothly had things gone that he 
had felt encouraged to invest even the reserve seven 
pounds I had given him, but when the cellar was full 
of their common stock, and his own suspicions had 
been lulled by the regular division of the profits — 
seventeen shillings per week for each — one morning, 
on arriving at the cellar to start the day’s work, he 
found the place locked, and when he called at the 
partner’s house for an explanation, the man laughed 
in his face. Everything in the cellar now belonged to 
him, he claimed, insisting that Quarriar had eaten up 
the original capital and his share of the profits besides. 

‘Besides, it never was your money,’ was the rogue’s 
ultimate argument. ‘Why shouldn’t J profit, too, by 
the Christian’s simplicity?’ 

Conn blindly believed his own man, for the trans- 
actions had not been recorded in writing, and it was 


46 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


only a case of Quarriar’s word against the partner’s. 
It was the latter who in his venomous craft had told 
Conn the younger children did not exist. But, thank 
Heaven! his quiver was not empty of them. He had 
blissfully taken them home when prosperity began, 
but now that he was again face to face with starvation, 
they had returned to his hospitable countryman, Nathan 
Beck. 

“You are sure you could absolutely produce the 
little ones ?” 

He looked grieved at my distrusting him. My faith 
in his probity was, he said with dignity, the one thing 
he valued in this world. I dismissed him with a little 
to tide him over the next week, thoroughly determined 
that the man’s good name should be cleared. The 
crocodile partner must disgorge, and the eyes of my 
benevolent friend and of Conn must be finally opened 
to the injustice they had unwittingly sanctioned. Again 
I wrote to my friend. As usual, Sir Asher replied 
kindly and without a trace of impatience. Would I 
get some intelligible written statement from Quarriar 
as to what had taken place? 

So, at my request, Quarriar sent me a statement in 
quaint English — probably the landlord’s — alleging 
specifically that the partner had detained goods and 
money belonging to Quarriar to the amount of £7 9s. 
sd., and had assaulted him into the bargain. When 
the partner was threatened with police-court proceed- 


I BECOME A SORTER 47 


ings, he had defied Quarriar with the remark that Mr. 
Conn would bear out his honesty. Quarriar could give 
as references, to show that ke was an honest man and 
had made a true statement as to the number of his 
children, seven Russians (named) who would attest that 
the partner provided by Conn was well known as a 
swindler. Though he was starving, Quarriar refused 
to have anything further to say to Conn. Qluarriar 
further referred to his landlord, who would willingly 
testify to his honesty. But being afraid of Conn, and 
not inclined to commit himself in writing, the landlord 
would give his version verbally. 

Against this statement my philanthropic friend had 
to set another as made by the partner. Quarriar, 
according to this, had received the five pounds direct 
from Conn, and had handed over niggardly sums to 
the partner for the purchase of goods, to wit, two sep- 
arate sums of one pound each (of which he returned 
to Quarriar thirty-three shillings from sales), while 
Quarriar only gave him as his share of the profits 
for the whole of the five weeks the sum of seventeen 
shillings, instead of the minimum of ten shillings each 
week that had been arranged. 

The partner insisted further that he had never handled 
any money (of which Quarriar had always retained 
full control), and that all the goods in the cellar at the 
time of the quarrel were only of the value of ten shillings, 
to which he was entitled, as Quarriar still owed him 


48 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


thirty-three shillings. Moreover, he was willing to 
repeat in Quarriar’s presence the lies the latter had 
tried to persuade him to tell. As to the children, he 
challenged Quarriar to produce them. 

In vain I attempted to grapple with these conflicting 
documents. My head was in a whirl. It seemed to 
me that no judicial bench, however eminent, could, 
from the bare materials presented, probe to the bottom 
of this matter. The arithmetic of both parties was 
hopelessly beyond me. The names of the witnesses 
introduced showed that there must be two camps, 
and that certainly Quarriar was solidly encamped amid 
his advisers. 

The whole business was taking on a most painful 
complexion, and I was torn by conflicting emotions 
and swayed alternately by suspicion and confidence. 

How sift the false from the true amid all this tangled 
mass? And yet mere curiosity would not leave me 
content to go to my grave not knowing whether my 
model was apostle or Ananias. I, too, must then 
become a rag-sorter, dabbling amid dirty fragments. 
Was there a black rag, and was there a white, or were 
both rags parti-coloured? ‘To take only the one point 
of the children, it would seem a very simple matter to 
determine whether a man has five daughters or two, 
and yet the more I looked into it, the more I saw the 
complexity. Even if three little girls were produced 
for my inspection, it was utterly impossible for me to 


I BECOME A SORTER 49 


tell whether they really were the model’s. Nor was 
it open to me to repeat the device of Solomon and have 
them hacked in two to see whose heart would be 
moved. 

And then, if Israel’s story was false here, what of 
the rest? Was Kazelia also a myth? Did the second 
daughter ever go to Hamburg? Was the landlord’s 
detaining me in the parlour a ruse to gain time for the 
attics to be emptied of any comforts? Where were 
the silver candlesticks? ‘These and other questions 
surged up torturingly. But I remembered the footsore 
figure on the Brighton pavement; I remembered the 
months he had practically lived with me, the countless 
conversations, and as the Man of Sorrows rose reproach- 
ful before me from my own canvas, with his noble bowed 
head, my faith in his dignity and probity returned un- 
broken. 

I called on Sir Asher —I had to go to the House of 
Commons to find him — and his practical mind quickly 
suggested the best course in the circumstances. He 
appointed a date for all parties — himself, myself, Conn, 
the two partners, and any witnesses they might care to 
bring — to appear at his office. But, above all, Quar- 
riar must bring the three children with him. 

On getting back to my studio, I found Quarriar 
waiting for me. He was come to pour out his heart to 
me, and to complain that all sorts of underhand in- 


quiries were being directed against him, so that he 
E 


50 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


scarcely dared to draw breath, so thick was the air 
with treachery. He was afraid that his very friends, 
who were anxious not to offend Conn and Sir Asher, 
might turn against him. Even his landlord had 
threatened to kick him out, as he had been unable to ~ 
pay his rent the last week or two. 

I told him he might expect a letter asking him to 
attend at Sir Asher’s office, that I should be there, and 
he should have an opportunity of facing his swindling 
partner. He welcomed it joyfully, and enthusiastically 
promised to obey the call and bring the children. I 
emptied my purse into his hand — there were three or 
four pounds — and he promised me that quite apart 
from the old tangle, he could now as an expert set up 
as a piece-sorter himself. And so his kingly figure 
passed out of my sight. 

The next document sent me in this cause célébre was 
a letter from Conn to announce that he had made all 
arrangements for the great meeting. 

‘Sir Asher’s private room in his office will be placed 
at the disposal of the inquiry. The original applica- 
tion form filled up by Quarriar clearly condemns him. 
The partner will be there, and I have arranged for 
Quarriar’s landlord to appear if you think it necessary. 
I may add that I have very good reason to believe that 
Quarriar does not mean to appear. I fancy he is try- 
ing to wriggle out of the appointment.’ 

I at once wrote a short note to Quarriar reminding 


I BECOME A SORTER 51 


him of the absolute necessity of appearing with the 
children, who should be even kept away from school. 
I reproduce the exact reply : — 


‘DEAR SIR, 

‘Referring to your welcome letter, I gratify you very 
much for the trouble you have taken for me. But I’m 
sorry to tell you that I refuse to go before the committee 
according you arranged to, as I received a letter without 
any name threatening me that I should not dare to call 
for the committee to tell the truth for I will be put into 
mischief and trouble. It is stated also that the same 
gentleman does not require the truth. He helps only 
those he likes to. So I will not call and wish you my 
dear gentleman not to trouble to come. ‘Therefore if 
you wish to assist me in somehow is very good and I 
will certainly gratify you and if not I will have to do 
without it, and will have to trust the Almighty. So 
kindly do not trouble about it as I do not wish to enter 
a risk. I remain your humble and grateful servant, 

‘ISRAEL QUARRIAR. 


‘P.S. — Last Wednesday a man called on my land- 
lord and asked him some secrets about me, and told 
him at last that I shall have to state according I will be 
commanded to and not as I wish. I enclose you here- 
with the same letter I received, it is written in Jewish. 
Please not to show it to anyone but to tear it at once as 


62 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


I would not trust it to any other one. I would certainly 
call at the office and follow your advice. But my life 
is dearer. So you should not trouble to come. I fear 
already I gratify you for kind help till now, in the 
future you may do as you wish.’ 


CHAPTER V 
LAST STAGE OF ALL 


Tus letter seemed decisive. I did not trouble Mr. 
Conn to English the Yiddish epistle. My imagination 
saw too clearly Quarriar himself dictating its luridly 
romantic phraseology. Such counter-plots, coils, trea- 
sons, and stratagems in so simple a matter! How 
Quarriar could even think them plausible I could not at 
first imagine; and with my anger was mingled a flush 
of resentment at his low estimate of my intellect. 

After-reflection instructed me that he wrote as a 
Russian to whom apparently nothing medieval was 
strange. But at the moment I had only the sense of 
outrage and trickery. All these months I had been 
fed upon lies. Day after day I had been swathed with 
them as with feathers. I had so pledged my reputation 
as a reader of character that he would appear with his 
three younger children, bear every test, and be trium- 
phantly vindicated. And in that moment of hot anger 
and wounded pride I had almost slashed through my 
canvas and mutilated beyond redemption that kingly 
head. But it looked at me sadly with its sweet majesty, 
and I stayed my hand, almost persuaded to have faith 


in it still. I began multiplying excuses for Quarriar, 
53 


54 THE MODEL OF SORROWS 


figuring him as misled by his neighbours, more skilled 
than he in playing upon philanthropic heart-strings; 
he had been told, doubtless, that two daughters made no 
impression upon the flinty heart of bureaucratic charity, 
that in order to soften it one must ‘increase and multiply.’ 
He had got himself into a network of falsehood from 
which, though his better nature recoiled, he had been 
unable to disentangle himself. But then I remembered 
how even in Russia he had pursued an illegal calling, 
how he had helped a friend to evade military service, 
and again I took up my knife. But the face preserved 
its reproachful dignity, seemed almost to turn the other 
cheek. Illegal calling! No; it was the law that was 
illegal — the cruel, impossible law, that in taking away 
all means of livelihood had contorted the Jew’s con- 
science. It was the country that was illegal — the cruel 
country whose frontiers could only be crossed by bribery 
and deceit — the country that had made him cunning © 
like all weak creatures in the struggle for survival. And 
so, gradually softer thoughts came to me, and less 
unmingled feelings. I could not doubt the general 
accuracy of his melancholy wanderings between Russia 
and Rotterdam, between London and Brighton. And 
were he spotless as the dove, that only made surer the 
blackness of Kazelia and the partner —his brethren 
in Israel and in the Exile. 


And so the new Man of Sorrows shaped himself to my 


LAST STAGE OF ALL 55 


vision. And, taking my brush, I added a touch here 
and a touch there till there came into that face of sor- 
rows a look of craft and guile. And asI stood back from 
my work, I was startled to see how nearly I had come 
to a photographic representation of my model; for those 
lines of guile had indeed been there, though I had elim- 
inated them in my confident misrepresentation. Now 
that I had exaggerated them, I had idealized, so to 
speak, in the reverse direction. And the more I pon- 
dered upon this new face, the more I saw that this 
return to a truer homeliness and a more real realism 
did but enable me to achieve a subtler beauty. For 
surely here at last was the true tragedy of the people 
of Christ — to have persisted sublimely, and to be as 
sordidly perverted; to be king and knave in one; to 
survive for two thousand years the loss of a fatherland 
and the pressure of persecution, only to wear on its 
soul the yellow badge which had defaced its garments. 
‘For to suffer two thousand years for an idea is a 
privilege that has been accorded only to Israel — ‘the 
soldier of God.’ That were no tragedy, but an heroic 
epic, even as the prophet Isaiah had prefigured. The 
true tragedy, the saddest sorrow, lay in the martyrdom 
of an Israel unworthy of his sufferings. And this was 
the Israel — the high tragedian in the comedy sock — 
that I tried humbly to typify in my Man of Sorrows. 








> 
i j 
avy ro ee 
At Ae 
Rio) 
ae % Mi! 





ANGLICIZATION 


‘English, all English, that’s my dream.’ 
CrEcIL RHODEs. 


I 


EVEN in his provincial days at Sudminster Solomon 
Cohen had distinguished himself by his Anglican mis- 
pronunciation of Hebrew and his insistence on a 
minister who spoke English and looked like a Chris- 
tian clergyman; and he had set a precedent in the con- 
gregation by docking the ‘e’ of his patronymic. There 
are many ways of concealing from the Briton your shame 
in being related through a pedigree of three thousand 
years to Aaron, the High Priest of Israel, and Cohn is 
one of the simplest and most effective. Once, taken 
to task by a pietist, Solomon defended himself by the 
quibble that Hebrew has no vowels. But even this 
would not account for the whittling away of his ‘Solo- 
mon.’ ‘S. Cohn’ was the insignium over his clothing 
establishment. Not that he was anxious to deny his 
Jewishness — was not the shop closed on Saturdays? 
—he was merely anxious not to obtrude it. ‘When 
we are in England, we are in England,’ he would say, 
with his Talmudic sing-song. 

59 


60 ANGLICIZATION 


S. Cohn was indeed a personage in the seaport of 
Sudminster, and his name had been printed on voting 
papers, and, what is more, he had at last become a 
Town Councillor. Really the citizens liked his stanch 
adherence to his ancient faith, evidenced so tangibly 
by his Sabbath shutters: even the Christian clothiers 
bore him good will, not suspecting that S. Cohn’s 
Saturday losses were more than counterbalanced by 
the general impression that a man who sacrificed 
business to religion would deal more fairly by you 
than his fellows. And his person, too, had the rotun- 
dity which the ratepayer demands. 

But twin with his Town Councillor’s pride was his 
pride in being Gabbai (treasurer) of the little synagogue 
tucked away in a back street: in which for four genera- 
tions prayer had ebbed and flowed as regularly as the 
tides of the sea, with whose careless rovers the wor- 
shippers did such lucrative business. The synagogue, 
not the sea, was the poetry of these eager traffickers: 
here they wore phylacteries and waved palm-branches 
and did other picturesque things, which in their utter 
ignorance of Catholic or other ritual they deemed 
unintelligible to the heathen and a barrier from man- 
kind. Very imposing was Solomon Cohn in his offi- 
cial pew under the reading platform, for there is nothing 
which so enhances a man’s dignity in the synagogue 
as the consideration of his Christian townsmen. ‘That 
is one of the earliest stages of Anglicization. 


ANGLICIZA TION 61 


I] 


Mrs. Cohn was a pale image of Mr. Cohn, seeing 
things through his gold spectacles, and walking humbly 
in the shadow of his greatness. She had dutifully 
borne him many children, and sat on the ground for 
such as died. Her figure refused the Jewess’s tradi- 
tion of opulency, and remained slender as though 
_ repressed. Her work was manifold and unceasing, 
for besides her domestic and shop-womanly duties 
she was necessarily a philanthropist, fettered with 
Jewish charities as the Gabbai’s wife, tangled with 
Christian charities as the consort of the Town Coun- 
cillor. In speech she was literally his echo, catching 
up his mistakes, indeed, admonished by him of her 
slips in speaking the Councillor’s English. He had 
had the start of her by five years, for she had been 
brought from Poland to marry him, through the 
good offices of a friend of hers who saw in her little 
dowry the nucleus of a thriving shop in a thriving 
port. 

And from this initial inferiority she never recovered 
— five milestones behind on the road of Anglicization! 
It was enough to keep down a more assertive per- 
sonality than poor Hannah’s. The mere danger of 
slipping back unconsciously to the banned Yiddish 
put a curb upon her tongue. Her large, dark eyes 
had a dog-like look, and they were set pathetically in 


62 ANGLICIZA TION 


a sallow face that suggested ill-health, yet immense 
staying power. 

That S. Cohn was a bit of a bully can scarcely be 
denied. It is difficult to combine the offices of Gabbaz 
and Town Councillor without a self-satisfaction that 
may easily degenerate into dissatisfaction with others. 
Least endurable was S. Cohn in his religious rigidity, 
and he could never understand that pietistic exercises 
in which he found pleasure did not inevitably produce 
ecstasy in his son and heir. And when Simon was dis- 
covered reading ‘The Pirates of Pechili,’ dexterously 
concealed in his prayer-book, the boy received a strap- 
ping that made his mother wince. Simon’s breakfast 
lay only at the end of a long volume of prayers; and, 
having ascertained by careful experiment the minimum 
of time his father would accept for the gabbling of 
these empty Oriental sounds, he had fallen back on 
penny numbers to while away the hungry minutes. 
The quartering and burning of these tales in an aveng- 
ing fireplace was not the least of the reasons why the 
whipped youth wept, and it needed several pieces of 
cake, maternally smuggled into his maw while the 
father’s back was turned, to choke his sobs. 


Il 


With the daughters — and there were three before 
the son and heir — there was less of religious friction, 


ANGLICIZA TION 63 


since women have not the pious privileges and burdens 
of the sterner sex. When the eldest, Deborah, was 
married, her husband received, by way of compensation, 
the goodwill of the Sudminster business, while S. Cohn 
migrated to the metropolis, in the ambition of making 
‘S. Cohn’s trouserings’ a household word. He did, in- 
deed, achieve considerable fame in the Holloway Road. 

Gradually he came to live away from his business, 
and in the most fashionable street of Highbury. But 
he was never to recover his exalted posts. ‘The London 
parish had older inhabitants, the local synagogue richer 
members. ‘The cry for Anglicization was common 
property. From pioneer, S. Cohn found himself out- 
-moded. The minister, indeed, was only too English 
—and especially his wife. One would almost have 
thought from their deportment that they considered 
themselves the superiors instead of the slaves of the 
congregation. S. Cohn had been accustomed to a 
series of clergymen, who must needs be taught pain- 
fully to parrot ‘Our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, 
the Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and all the 
Royal Family’ — the indispensable atom of English 
in the service —so that he, the expert, had held his 
breath while they groped and stumbled along the precipi- 
tous pass. Now the whilom Gabbai and Town Councillor 
found himself almost patronized — as a poor provincial 
— by this mincing, genteel clerical couple. He retorted 
by animadverting upon the preacher’s heterodoxy. 


64 ANGLICIZA TION 


An urban unconcern met the profound views so often 
impressed on Simon witha strap. ‘We are not in Po- 
land now,’ said the preacher, shrugging his shoulders. 

‘In Poland!’ S$. Cohn’s blood boiled. To be 
twitted with Poland, after decades of Anglicization! 
He, who employed a host of Anglo-Saxon clerks, 
counter-jumpers, and packers! ‘And where did your 
father come from?’ he retorted hotly. 

He had almost a mind to change his synagogue, 
but there was no other within such easy walking dis- 
tance — an important Sabbatic consideration — and 
besides, the others were reported to be even worse. 
Dread rumours came of a younger generation that 
craved almost openly for organs in the synagogue 
and women’s voices in the choir, nay, of even more 
flagitious spirits — devotional dynamitards — whose 
dream was a service all English, that could be under- 
stood instead of chanted! Dark mutterings against 
the ancient Rabbis were in the very air of these wealthier 
quarters of London. 

‘Oh, shameless ignorance of the new age,’ S. Cohn 
was wont to complain, ‘that does not know the limits 
of Anglicization !’ 


IV 


That Simon should enter his father’s business was 
as inevitable as that the business should prosper in 
spite of Simon. 


ANGLICIZA TION 65 


His career had been settled ere his father became 
aware that Highbury aspired even to law and medicine, 
and the idea that Simon’s education was finished was 
not lightly to be dislodged. Simon’s education con- 
sisted of the knowledge conveyed in seaport schools 
for the sons of tradesmen, while a long course of penny 
dreadfuls had given him a peculiar and extensive 
acquaintance with the ways of the world. Carefully 
curtained away in a secret compartment, lay his ele- 
mentary Hebrew lore. It did not enter into his con- 
ception of the perfect Englishman. Ah, how he 
rejoiced in this wider horizon of London, so thickly 
starred with music-halls, billiard-rooms, and restau- 
rants! ‘We are emancipated now,’ was his cry: ‘we 
have too much intellect to keep all those old laws;’ 
and he swallowed the forbidden oyster in a fine spiritual 
_ glow, which somehow or other would not extend to 
bacon. That stuck more in his throat, and so was 
only taken in self-defence, to avoid the suspicions of 
a convivial company. 

As he sat at his father’s side in the synagogue — 
a demure son of the Covenant — this young English- 
man lurked beneath his praying-shawl, even as beneath 
his prayer-book had lurked ‘The Pirates of Pechili.’ 

In this hidden life Mrs. S. Cohn was not an aider or 
abettor, except in so far as frequent gifts from her own 
pocket-money might be considered the equivalent of 
the surreptitious cake of childhood. She would have 

F 


66 ANGLICIZA TION 


shared in her husband’s horror had she seen Simon 
banqueting on unrighteousness, and her apoplexy 
would have been original, not derivative. For her, 
indeed, London had proved narrowing rather than 
widening. She became part of a parish instead of part 
of a town, and of a Ghetto in a parish at that! The 
vast background of London was practically a mirage — 
the London suburb was farther from London than the 
provincial town. No longer did the currents of civic 
life tingle through her; she sank entirely to family 
affairs, excluded even from the ladies’ committee. 
Her lord’s life, too, shrank, though his business ex- 
tended —the which, uneasily suspected, did but in- 
crease his irritability. He had now the pomp and 
pose of his late offices minus any visible reason: a Sir 
Oracle without a shrine, an abdomen without authority. 

Even the two new sons-in-law whom his ability to 
clothe them had soon procured in London, listened 
impatiently, once they had safely passed under the 
Canopy and were ensconced in plush parlours of their 
own. Home and shop became his only realm, and 
his autocratic tendencies grew the stronger by com- 
pression. He read ‘the largest circulation,’ and his 
wife became an echo of its opinions. ‘These opinions, 
never nebulous, became sharp as illuminated sky- 
signs when the Boer War began. 

‘The impertinent rascals !’ cried S. Cohn, furiously. 
‘They have invaded our territory.’ 


ANGLICIZATION 67 


‘Is it possible?’ ejaculated Mrs. Cohn. ‘This 
comes of our kindness to them after Majuba!’ 


V 


A darkness began to overhang the destinies of Britain. 
Three defeats in one week! 

‘It is humiliating,’ said S. Cohn, clenching his fist. 

‘It makes a miserable Christmas,’ said Mrs. Cohn 
gloomily. Although her spouse still set his face against 
the Christmas pudding which had invaded so many 
Anglo- Jewish homes, the festival, with its shop-window 
flamboyance, entered far more vividly into his con- 
sciousness than the Jewish holidays, which produced 
no impression on the life of the streets. 

The darkness grew denser. Young men began to 
enlist for the front: the City formed a new regiment 
of Imperial Volunteers. S. Cohn gave his foreign 
houses large orders for khaki trouserings. He sent 
out several parcels of clothing to the seat of war, and 
had the same duly recorded in his favourite Christian 
newspaper, whence it was copied into his favourite 
Jewish weekly, which was, if possible, still more chau- 
vinist, and had a full-page portrait of Sir Asher Aarons- 
berg, M.P. for Middleton, who was equipping a local 
corps at his own expense. Gradually S. Cohn became 
aware that the military fever of which he read in both 
his organs was infecting his clothing emporium — 


68 ANGLICIZATION 


that his own counter-jumpers were in heats of adven- 
turous resolve. The military microbes must have 
lain thick in the khaki they handled. At any rate, S. 
Cohn, always quick to catch the contagion of the correct 
thing, announced that he would present a bonus to all 
who went out to fight for their country, and that he 
would keep their places open for their return. The 
Saturday this patriotic offer was recorded in his news- 
paper — ‘On inquiry at S. Cohn’s, the great clothing 
purveyor of the Holloway Road, our representative 
was informed that no less than five of the young men 
were taking advantage of their employer’s enthusiasm 
for England and the Empire’ — the already puffed-up 
Solomon had the honour of being called to read in the 
Law, and first as befitted the sons of Aaron. It was 
a man restored almost to his provincial pride who 
recited the ancient benediction: ‘Blessed art Thou, 
O Lord our God, who hast chosen us from among 
all peoples and given to us His law.’ 

But there was a drop of vinegar in the cup. 

‘And why wasn’t Simon in synagogue?’ he inquired 
of his wife, as she came down the gallery stairs to meet 
her lord in the lobby, where the congregants loitered to 
chat. 

‘Do I know?’ murmured Mrs. Cohn, flushing be- 
neath her veil. 

_ ‘When I left the house he said he was coming on.’ 

‘He didn’t know you were to be “called up.’’’ 


ANGLICIZA TION 69 


‘It isn’t that, Hannah,’ he grumbled. ‘Think of 
the beautiful war-sermon he missed. In these dark 
days we should be thinking of our country, not of our 
pleasures.’ And he drew her angrily without, where 
the brightly-dressed worshippers, lingeringly exchang- 
ing eulogiums on the ‘Rule Britannia’ sermon, made 
an Oriental splotch of colour on the wintry pavement. 


VI 


At lunch the reprobate appeared, looking downcast. 

‘Where have you been?’ thundered S. Cohn, who, 
never growing older, imagined Simon likewise sta- 
tionary. 

‘I went out for a walk — it was a fine morning.’ 

‘And where did you go?’ 

‘Oh, don’t bother !’ 

‘But I shall bother. Where did you go?’ 

He grew sullen. ‘It doesn’t matter —they won’t 
have me.’ 

“Who won’t have you?’ 

‘The war office.’ 

‘Thank God!’ broke from Mrs. Cohn. 

‘Eh?’ Mr. Cohn looked blankly from one to the 
other. 

‘It is nothing — he went to see the enlisting and all 
that. Your soup is getting cold.’ 

But S. Cohn had taken off his gold spectacles and 


70 ANGLICIZA TION 


was polishing them with his serviette — always a sign 
of a stormy meal. 

‘It seems to me something has been going on behind 
my back,’ he said, looking from mother to son. 

‘Well, I didn’t want to annoy you with Simon’s 
madcap ideas,’ Hannah murmured. ‘But it’s all over 
now, thank God!’ 

‘Oh, he’d better know,’ said Simon sulkily, ‘espe- 
cially as Iam not going to be choked off. It’s all stuff 
what the doctor says. I’m as strong as a horse. And, 
what’s more, I’m one of the few applicants who can 
ride one.’ 

‘Hannah, will you explain to me what this Meshuggas 
(madness) is?’ cried S. Cohn, lapsing into a non- 
Anglicism. 

‘T’ve got to go to the front, just like other young men!’ 

‘What!’ shrieked S. Cohn. ‘Enlist! You, that I 
brought up as a gentleman!’ ; 

‘It’s gentlemen that’s going—the City Imperial 4 
Volunteers !’ 

‘The volunteers! But that’s my own clerks.’ 

‘No; there are gentlemen among them. Read your 
paper.’ 

‘But not rich Jews.’ 

‘Oh, yes. I saw several chaps from Bayswater.’ 

‘We Jews of this favoured country,’ put in Hannah 
eagerly, ‘grateful to the noble people who have given 


? 





us every right, every liberty, must 








—— 


ANGLICIZA TION 71 


S. Cohn was taken aback by this half-unconscious 
quotation from the war-sermon of the morning. ‘ Yes, 
we must subscribe and all that,’ he interrupted. 

“We must fight,’ said Simon. 

‘You fight!’ His father laughed half-hysterically. 
‘Why, you’d shoot yourself with your own gun!’ He 
had not been so upset since the day the minister had 
disregarded his erudition. 

‘Oh, would I, though?’ And Simon pursed his 
lips and nodded meaningly. 

‘As sure as to-day is the Holy Sabbath. And you’d 
be stuck on your own bayonet, like an obstinate pig.’ 

Simon got up and left the table and the room. 

Hannah kept back her tears before the servant. 
‘There!’ she said. ‘And now he’s turned sulky and 


-won’t eat.’ 


‘Didn’t I say an obstinate pig? He’s always been 
like that from a baby. But his stomach always sur- 


‘renders.’ He resumed his meal with a wronged air, 


keeping his spectacles on the table, for frequent ner- 
vous polishing. 

Of a sudden the door reopened and a soldier pre- 
sented himself —gun on shoulder. For a moment 
S. Cohn, devoid of his glasses, stared without recog- 
nition. Wild hereditary tremors ran through him, 
born of the ‘Russian persecution, and he had a vague 
nightmare sense of the Chappers, the Jewish man- 
gatherers who collected the tribute of young Jews for 





72 ANGLICIZATION 


the Little Father. But as Simon began to loom through 
the red fog, ‘A gun on the Sabbath!’ he cried. It was 
as if the bullet had gone through all his conceptions of 
life and of Simon. 

Hannah snatched at the side issue. ‘I read in 
Josephus —Simon’s prize for Hebrew, you know — 
that the Jews fought against the Romans on Sabbath.’ 

‘Yes; but they fought for themselves — for our Holy 
Temple.’ 

‘But it’s for ourselves now,’ said Simon. ‘Didn’t 
you always say we are English ?’ 

S. Cohn opened his mouth in angry retort. Then 
he discovered he had no retort, only anger. And this 
made him angrier, and his mouth remained open, ae 
terrifyingly for poor Mrs. Cohn. 

‘What is the use of arguing with him?’ she said 
imploringly. ‘The War Office has been sensible 
enough to refuse him.’ 

‘We shall see,’ said Simon. ‘I am going to peg 
away at ’em again, and if I don’t get into the Mounted 
Infantry, ’m a Dutchman — and of the Boer variety.’ 

He seemed any kind of man save a Jew to the puzzled 
father. ‘Hannah, you must have known of this — 
these clothes,’ S. Cohn spluttered. 

‘They don’t cost anything,’ she murmured. ‘The 
child amuses himself. He will never really be called 
out.’ 

‘If he is, Pll stop his supplies.’ 


ANGLICIZA TION 78 


‘Oh,’ said Simon, airily, ‘the Government will 
attend to that.’ 

‘Indeed!’ And S. Cohn’s face grew black. ‘But 
remember — you may go, but you shall never come 
back.’ 

‘Oh, Solomon! How can you utter such an awful 
omen ?’ 

Simon laughed. ‘Don’t bother, mother. He’s bound 
to take me back. Isn’t it in the papers that he prom- 
ised ?’ 

S. Cohn went from black to green. 


VII 


Simon got his way. The authorities reconsidered 
their decision. But the father would not reconsider 
his. Ignorant of his boy’s graceless existence, he 
fumed at the first fine thing in the boy’s life. ’Tis a 
wise father that knows his own child. 

Mere emulation of his Christian comrades, and the 
fun of the thing, had long ago induced the lad to add 
volunteering to his other dissipations. But, once in 
it, the love of arms seized him, and when the call for 
serious fighters came, some new passion that surprised 
even himself leapt to his breast — the first call upon an 
idealism, choked, rather than fed, by. a misunderstood 
Judaism. Anglicization had done its work: from his 
schooldays he had felt himself a descendant, not of 


74 ANGLICIZATION 


Judas Maccabzeus, but of Nelson and Wellington; and 
now that his brethren were being mowed down by a 
kopje-guarded foe, his whole soul rose in venomous 
sympathy. And, mixed with this genuine instinct of 
devotion to the great cause of country, were stirrings 
of anticipated adventure, gorgeous visions of charges, 
forlorn hopes, picked-up shells, redoubts stormed; 
heritages of ‘The Pirates of Pechili,’ and all the mili- 
tary romances that his prayer-book had masked. 

He looked every inch an Anglo-Saxon, in his khaki 
uniform and his great slouch hat, with his bayonet and 
his bandolier. 

The night before he sailed for South Africa there 
was a service in St. Paul’s Cathedral, for which each 
volunteer had two tickets. Simon sent his to his father. 
‘The Lord Mayor will attend in state. I dare say 
you'll like to see the show,’ he wrote flippantly. 

‘He’ll become a Christian next,’ said S. Cohn, tear- 
ing the cards in twain. 

Later Mrs. Cohn pieced them together. It was the 
last chance of seeing her boy. 


Vill 


Unfortunately the Cathedral service fell on a Friday 
night, when S. Cohn, the Emporium closed, was wont 
to absorb the Sabbath peace. He would sit, after high 
tea, of which cold fried fish was the prime ingredient, 


ANGLICIZATION 75 


dozing over the Jewish weekly. He still approved 
platonically of its bellicose sentiments. This January 
night, the Sabbath arriving early in the afternoon, he 
was snoring before seven, and Mrs. Cohn slipped out, 
risking his wrath. Her religion forced her to make the 
long journey on foot; but, hurrying, she arrived at 
St. Paul’s before the doors were opened. And through- 
out the long walk was a morbid sense of one wasted 
ticket. She almost stopped at a friend’s house to offer 
the exciting spectacle, but dread of a religious rebuff 
carried her past. With Christians she was not intimate 
enough to invite companionship. Besides, would not 
everybody ask why she was going without her husband? 

She inquired for the door mentioned on her ticket, 
and soon found herself one of a crowd of parents on 
the steps. A very genteel crowd, she noted with 
pleasure. Her boy would be in good company. The 
scraps of conversation she caught dealt with a world 
of alien things — how little she was Anglicized, she 
thought, after all those years! And when she was 
borne forward into the Cathedral, her heart beat with 
a sense of dim, remote glories. ‘To have lived so long 
in London and never to have entered here! She was 
awed and soothed by the solemn vistas, the perspec- 
tives of pillars and arches, the great nave, the white 
robes of the choir vaguely stirring a sense of angels, 
the overarching dome, defined by a fiery rim, but other- 
wise suggesting dim, skyey space. 


76 ANGLICIZA TION 


Suddenly she realized that she was sitting among the 
men. But it did not seem to matter. The building 
kept one’s thoughts religious. Around the waiting 
congregation, the human sea outside the Cathedral 
rumoured, and whenever the door was opened to admit 
some dignitary the roar of cheering was heard like a 
salvo saluting his entry. The Lord Mayor and the 
Aldermen passed along the aisle, preceded by mace- 
bearers; and mingled with this dazzle of gilded gran- 
deur and robes, was a regretful memory of the days 
when, as a Town Councillor’s consort, she had at least 
touched the hem of this unknown historic English 
life. The skirl of bagpipes shrilled from without — 
that exotic, half-barbarous sound now coming intimately 
into her life. And then, a little later, the wild cheers 
swept into the Cathedral like a furious wind, and the 
thrill of the marching soldiers passed into the air, and 
the congregation jumped up on the chairs and craned 
towards the right aisle to stare at the khaki couples. 
How she looked for Simon! 

The volunteers filed on, filed on — beardless youths 
mostly, a few with a touch of thought in the face, 
many with the honest nullity of the clerk and the shop- 
man, some with the prizefighter’s jaw, but every face 
set and serious. Ah! at last, there was her Simon — 
manlier, handsomer than them all! But he did not 
see her: he marched on stiffly; he was already sucked 
up into this strange life. Her heart grew heavy. But 


4 


ANGLICIZATION 77 


it lightened again when the organ pealed out. The 
newspapers the next day found fault with the plain 
music, with the responses all in monotone, but to her 
it was divine. Only the words of the opening hymn, 
which she read in the ‘Form of Prayer,’ discomforted 


her : 
‘Fight the good fight with all thy might, 
Christ is thy Strength and Christ thy Right.’ 


But the bulk of the liturgy surprised her, so strangely 
like was it to the Jewish. The ninety-first Psalm! 
Did they, then, pray the Jewish prayers in Christian 
churches? ‘For He shall give His angels charge over 
thee: to keep thee in all thy ways.’ Ah! how she 
prayed that for Simon! 

As the ecclesiastical voice droned on, unintelligibly, 
inaudibly, in echoing, vaulted space, she studied the 
hymns and verses, with their insistent Old Testament 
savour, culminating in the farewell blessing: 

“The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make 
His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. 
The Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon 
you and give you peace.’ 

How often she had heard it in Hebrew from the 
priests as they blessed the other tribes! Her husband 
himself had chanted it, with uplifted palms and curiously 
grouped fingers. But never before had she felt its 
beauty; she had never even understood its words till 
she read the English of them in the gilt-edged Prayer- 


78 ANGLICIZA TION 


Book that marked rising wealth. Surely there had been 
some monstrous mistake in conceiving the two creeds 
as at daggers drawn, and though she only pretended 
to kneel with the others, she felt her knees sinking in 
surrender to the larger life around her. 

As the volunteers filed out and the cheers came 
in, she wormed her way nearer to the aisle, scrambling 
even over backs of chairs in the general mellay. This 
time Simon saw her. He stretched out his martial 
arm and blew her a kiss. Oh, delicious tears, full of 
heartbreak and exaltation! This was their farewell. 

She passed out into the roaring crowd, with a fan- 
tastic dream-sense of a night-sky and a great stone 
building, dark with age and solemnity, and unreal 
figures perched on railings and points of vantage, and 
hurrahing hordes that fused themselves with the pro- 
cession and become part of its marching. She yearned 
forwards to vague glories, aware of a poor past. She 
ran with the crowd. How they cheered her boy! 
Her boy! She saw him carried off on the shoulders of 
Christian citizens. Yes; he was ahero. She was the 
mother of a hero. 


IX 


The first news she got from him was posted at St. 
Vincent. He wrote to her alone, with a jocose hope 
that his father would be satisfied with his sufferings 


ANGLICIZATION 79 


on the voyage. Not only had the sea been rough, 
but he had suffered diabolically from the inoculation 
against enteric fever, which, even after he had got his 
sea-legs, kept him to his berth and gave him a ‘Day 
of Atonement’ thirst. 

‘Ah!’ growled S. Cohn; ‘he sees what a fool he’s 
been, and he’ll take the next boat back.’ 

‘But that would be desertion.’ 

‘Well, he didn’t mind deserting the business.’ 

Mr. Cohn’s bewilderment increased with every 
letter. The boy was sleeping in sodden trenches, 
sometimes without blankets; and instead of grumbling 
at that, his one grievance was that the regiment was 
not getting to the front. Heat and frost, hurricane and 
dust-storm — nothing came amiss. And he described 
himself as stronger than ever, and poured scorn on 
the medical wiseacre who had tried to refuse him. 

“All the same,’ sighed Hannah, ‘I do hope they will 
just be used to guard the lines of communication.’ 
She was full of war-knowledge acquired with painful 
eagerness, prattled of Basuto ponies and Mauser bullets, 
pontoons and pom-poms, knew the exact position of 
the armies, and marked her war map with coloured 
pins. | 

Simon, too, had developed quite a literary talent under 
the pressure of so much vivid new life, and from his 
cheery letters she learned much that was not in the 
papers, especially in those tense days when the C.I.V.’s 


80 ANGLICIZATION 


did at last get to the front— and remained there: 
tales of horses mercifully shot, and sheep mercilessly 
poisoned, and oxen dropping dead as they dragged the 
convoys; tales of muddle and accident, tales of British 
soldiers slain by their own protective cannon as they 
lay behind ant-heaps facing the enemy, and British 
officers culled under the very eyes of the polo-match; 
tales of hospital and camp, of shirts turned sable and 
putties worn to rags, and all the hidden miseries of 
uncleanliness and insanitation that underlie the glories 
of war. There were tales, too, of quarter-rations; 
but these she did not read to her husband, lest the 
mention of ‘bully-beef’ should remind him of how 
his son must be eating forbidden food. Once, even, 
two fat pigs were captured at a hungry moment for the 
battalion. But there came a day when S. Cohn seized 
those letters and read them first. He began to speak 
of his boy at the war — nay, to read the letters to en- 
thralled groups in the synagogue lobby — groups that 
swallowed without reproach the ‘vipha meat cooked 
in Simon’s mess-tin. 

It was like being Gabbaz over again. 

Moreover, Simon’s view of the Boer was so strictly 
orthodox as to give almost religious satisfaction to the 
proud parent. ‘A canting hypocrite, a psalm-singer 
and devil-dodger, he has no civilization worth the 
name, and his customs are filthy. Since the great 
trek he has acquired, from long intercourse with his 


ANGLICIZA TION 81 


Kaffir slaves, many of the native’s savage traits. In 
short, a born liar, credulous and barbarous, crassly 
ignorant and inconceivably stubborn.’ 

‘Crassly ignorant and inconceivably stubborn,’ re- 
peated S. Cohn, pausing impressively. ‘Haven’t I 
always said that? ‘The boy only bears out what I 
knew without going there. But hear further! ‘Is 
it to be wondered at that the Boer farmer, hidden in 
the vast undulations of the endless veldt, with his wife, 
his children, and his slaves, should lose all sense of pro- 
portion, ignorant of the outside world, his sole know- 
ledge filtering through Jo-burgh?”’ 

As S. Cohn made another dramatic pause, it was 
suddenly borne in on his wife with a stab of insight 
that he was reading a description of himself — nay, of 
herself, of her whole race, hidden in the great world, 
awaiting some vague future of glory that never came. 
The important voice of her husband broke again upon 
her reflections : — 

‘“He has held many nights of supplication to his 
fetish, and is still unconvinced that his God of Battles 
is asleep.”’ The reader chuckled, and a broad smile 
overspread the synagogue lobby. ‘‘‘They are brave 
— oh, yes, but it is not what we mean by it — they are 
good fighters, because they have Dutch blood at the 
back of them, and a profound contempt for us. Their 
whole life has been spent on the open veldt (we are 
always fighting them on somebody’s farm, who knows 

G 


82 ANGLICIZA TION 


every inch of the ground), and they never risk any- 
thing except in the trap sort of manoeuvres. The 
brave rush of our Tommies is unknown to them, and 
their slim nature would only see the idiocy of walking 
into a death-trap, cool as in a play. Were there ever 
two races less alike?”’’ wound up the youthful philos- 
opher in his tent. ‘“‘I really do not see how they are to 
live together after the war.’’’ 

‘That’s easy enough,’ S. Cohn had already com- 
mented to his wife as oracularly as if she did not read 
the same morning paper. ‘Intermarriage! In a 
generation or two there will be one fine Anglo-African 
race. That’s the solution — mark my words. And 
you can tell the boy as much — only don’t say I told 
you to write to him.’ 

‘Father says I’m to tell you intermarriage is the 
solution,’ Mrs. Cohn wrote obediently. ‘He really is 
getting much softer towards you.’ 

‘Tell father that’s nonsense,’ Simon wrote back. 
‘The worst individuals we have to deal with come 
from a Boer mother and an English father, deposited 
here by the first Transvaal war.’ 

S. Cohn snorted angrily at the message. ‘That was 
because there were two Governments—he forgets — 
there will be only one United Empire now.’ 

He was not appeased till Private Cohn was pro- 
- moted, and sent home a thrilling adventure, which 
the proud reader was persuaded by the lobby to for- 


ANGLICIZATION 83 


ward to the communal organ. The organ asked for 
a photograph to boot. Then S. Cohn felt not only 
Gabbai, but town councillor again. 

This wonderful letter, of which S. Cohn distributed 
printed copies to the staff of the Emporium with a bean- 
feast air, ran: — 


‘We go out every day —I am speaking of my own 
squadron — each officer taking his turn with twenty 
to fifty men, and sweep round the farms a few miles 
out; and we seldom come back without seeing Boers 
hanging round on the chance of a snipe at our flanks, 
or waiting to put up a trap if we go too far. The local 
commando fell on our cattle-guard the other day —a 
hundred and fifty to our twenty-five — and we suffered : 
it was a horrible bit of country. There was a young 
chap, Winstay —rather a pal of mine —he had a 
narrow squeak, knocked over by a shot in his breast. 
I managed to get him safe back to camp — Heaven 
knows how ! — and they made me a lance-corporal, and 
the beggar says I saved his life; but it was really 
through carrying a fat letter from his sister — not even 
his sweetheart. We chaff him at missing such a 
romantic chance. He got off with a flesh wound, but 
there is a great blot of red ink on the letter. You 
may imagine we were not anxious to let our comrades 
go unavenged. My superiors being sick or otherwise 
occupied, I was allowed to make a night-march with 


84 ANGLICIZA TION 


thirty-five men on a farm nine miles away — just to 
get square. It was a nasty piece of work, as we were 
within a few miles of the Boer laager, three hundred 
strong. There was moonlight, too—it was like a 
dream, that strange, silent ride, with only the stumble 
of a horse breaking the regular thud of the hoofs. 
We surrounded the farm in absolute silence, dis- 
mounting some thousand yards away, and fixing 
bayonets. I told the men I wanted no shots — that 
would have brought down the commando — but 
cold steel and silence. We crept up and swept 
the farm — it was weird, but, alas! they were out on 
the loot. The men were furious, but we live in 
hopes.’ 


The end was a trifle disappointing, but S. Cohn, 
too, lived in hopes — of some monstrous and memorable 
butchery. Even his wife had got used to the firing- 
line, now that neither shot nor shell could harm her 
boy. ‘For He shall give his angels charge over thee.’ 
She had come to think her secret daily repetition of 
the ninety-first Psalm talismanic. 

When Simon sent home the box which had held the 
chocolates presented by the Queen, a Boer bullet, and 
other curios, S. Cohn displayed them in his window, 
and the crowd and the business they brought him put 
him more and more in sympathy with Simon and the 
Empire. In conversation he deprecated the non- 


ANGLICIZATION 85 


militarism of the Jew: ‘If I were only a younger man 
Giveeisiny . . 2 

The night Mafeking was relieved, the Emporium was 
decorated with bunting from roof to basement, and a 
great illuminated window revealed nothing but stacks 
of khaki trouserings. 

So that, although the good man still sulked over 
Simon to his wife, she was not deceived; and, the time 
drawing nigh for Simon’s return, she began to look 
happily forward to a truly reunited family. 

In her wildest anxiety it never occurred to her that 
it was her husband who would die. Yet this is what 
the irony of fate brought to pass. In the unending 
campaign which death wages with life, S. Cohn was 
slain, and Simon returned unscratched from the war 
to recite the Kaddish in his memory. 


Xx 


Simon came back bronzed and a man. The shock 
of finding his father buried had supplied the last trans- 
forming touch; and, somewhat to his mother’s surprise, 
he settled down contentedly to the business he had in- 
herited. And now that he had practically unlimited 
money to spend, he did not seem to be spending it, 
but to be keeping better hours than when dodging his 
father’s eye. His only absences from home he accounted 
for as visits to Winstay, his pal of the campaign, with 


86 ANGLICIZA TION 


whom he had got chummier than ever since the affair 
of the cattle-guard. Winstay, he said, was of good 
English family, with an old house in Harrow —for- _ 
tunately on the London and North Western Railway, 
so that he could easily get a breath of country air 
on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. He seemed 
to have forgotten (although the Emporium was still 
closed on Saturdays) that riding was forbidden, and 
his mother did not remind him of it. The life that 
had been risked for the larger cause, she vaguely 
felt as enfranchised from the limitations of the 
smaller. 

Nearly two months after Simon’s return, a special 
military service was held at the Great Synagogue on 
the feast of Chanukah — the commemoration of the 
heroic days of Judas Maccabzeus —and the Jewish 
C.I.V.’s were among the soldiers invited. Mrs. Cohn, 
too, got a ticket for the imposing ceremony, which was 
fixed for a Sunday afternoon. 

As they sat at the midday meal on the exciting day, 
Mrs. Cohn said suddenly: ‘Guess who paid me a visit 
yesterday.’ 

‘Goodness knows,’ said Simon. 

‘Mr. Sugarman.’ And she smiled nervously. 

‘Sugarman ?’ repeated Simon, blankly. 

“The — the — er — the matrimonial agent.’ 

‘What impudence! Before your year of mourning 
is up!’ 


ANGLICIZATION 87 


Mrs Cohn’s sallow face became one flame. ‘Not 
me! You!’ she blurted. 

‘Me! Well, of all the cheek!’ And Simon’s flush 
matched his mother’s. 

‘Oh, it’s not so unreasonable,’ she murmured depre- 
catingly. ‘I suppose he thought you would be looking 
for a wife before long; and naturally,’ she added, her 
voice growing bolder, ‘I should like to see you settled 
before I follow your father. After all, you are no 
ordinary match. Sugarman says there isn’t a girl in 
Bayswater, even, who would refuse you.’ 

‘The very reason for refusing them,’ cried Simon, 
hotly. ‘What a ghastly idea, that your wife would 
just as soon have married any other fellow with the 
same income!’ 

Mrs. Cohn cowered under his scorn, yet felt vaguely 
exalted by it, as by the organ in St. Paul’s, and strange 
tears of shame came to complicate her emotions fur- 
ther. She remembered how she had been exported 
from Poland to marry the unseen S. Cohn. Ah! how 
this new young generation was snapping asunder the 
ancient coils! how the new and diviner sap ran in its 
veins ! 

‘I shall only marry a girl I love, mother. And it’s 
not likely to be one of these Jewish girls, I tell you 
frankly.’ 

She trembled. ‘One of which Jewish girls?’ she 
faltered. 


88 ANGLICIZATION 


‘Oh, any sort. They don’t appeal to me.’ 

Her face grew sallower. ‘I am glad your father 
isn’t alive to hear that,’ she breathed. 

‘But father said intermarriage is the solution,’ re- 
torted Simon. 

_ Mrs. Cohn was struck dumb. ‘He was thinking 
how to make the Boers English,’ she said at last. 

‘And didn’t he say the Jews must be English, too?’ 

‘Aren’t there plenty of Jewish girls who are English ?’ 
she murmured miserably. 

‘You mean, who don’t care a pin about the old 
customs? Then where’s the difference?’ retorted 
Simon. 

The meal finished in uncomfortable silence, and 
Simon went off to don his khaki regimentals and join 
in the synagogue parade. 

Mrs. Cohn’s heart was heavy as she dressed for the 
same spectacle. Her brain was busy piecing it all 
together. Yes, she understood it all now — those 
sedulous Saturday and Sunday afternoons at Harrow. 
She lived at Harrow, then, this Christian, this grateful 
sister of the rescued Winstay: it was she who had 
steadied his life; hers were those ‘fat letters’ faintly 
aromatic. It must be very wonderful, this strange 
passion, luring her son from his people with its for- 
bidden glamour. How Highbury would be scandalized, 
robbed of so eligible a bridegroom! The sons-in-law 
she had enriched would reproach her for the shame 


ANGLICIZATION 89 


imported into the family — they who had cleaved to the 
Faith! And — more formidable than all the rest — she 
heard the tongue of her cast-off seaport, to whose 
reverence or disesteem she still instinctively referred 
all her triumphs and failures. 

Yet, on the other hand, surged her hero-son’s scorn 
at the union by contract consecrated by the genera- 
tions! But surely a compromise could be found. He 
should have loved — this strange English thing — but 
could he not find a Jewess? ‘Ah, happy inspiration! 
he should marry a quite poor Jewess — he had money 
enough, thank Heaven! That would show him he 
was not making a match, that he was truly in love. 

But this strange girl at Harrow — he would never be 
happy with her! No, no; there were limits to Angli- 
cization. : 


XI 


It was not till she was seated in the ancient synagogue, 
relieved from the squeeze of entry in the wake of sol- 
diers and the exhilaration of hearing ‘See the Con- 
quering Hero comes’ pealing, she knew not whence, 
that she woke to the full strangeness of it all, and to 
the consciousness that she was actually sitting among 
the men —just as in St. Paul’s. And what men! 
Everywhere the scarlet and grey of uniforms, the glister 
of gold lace —the familiar decorous lines of devout 


90 ANGLICIZA TION 


top-hats broken by glittering helmets, bear-skins, 
white nodding plumes, busbies, red caps a-cock, glen- 
garries, all the colour of the British army, mixed 
with the feathered jauntiness of the Colonies and the 
khaki sombreros of the C.I.V.’s! Coldstream Guards, 
Scots Guards, Dragoon Guards, Lancers, Hussars, 
Artillery, Engineers, King’s Royal Rifles, all the corps 
that had for the first time come clearly into her con- 
sciousness in her tardy absorption into English realities, 
Jews seemed to be among them all. And without con- 
scription — oh, what would poor Solomon have thought 
of that ? 

The Great Synagogue itself struck a note of modern 
English gaiety, as of an hotel dining-room, freshly gilded, 
divested of its historic mellowness, the electric light re- 
placing the ancient candles and flooding the winter 
afternoon with white resplendence. The pulpit — 
yes, the pulpit—was swathed in the Union Jack; 
and looking towards the box of the Parnass and Gabba1 
she saw it was occupied by officers with gold sashes. 
Somebody whispered that he with the medalled breast 
was a Christian Knight and Commander of the Bath — 
‘a great honour for the synagogue!’ What! were 
Christians coming to Jewish services, even as she had 
gone to Christian? Why, here was actually a white 
cross on an officer’s sleeve. 

And before these alien eyes, the cantor, intoning 
his Hebrew chant on the steps of the Ark, lit the great 


ANGLICIZATION 91 


many-branched Chanukah candlestick. Truly, ‘the 
world was changing under her eyes. 

And when the Chief Rabbi went toward the Ark 
in his turn, she saw that he wore a strange scarlet and 
white gown (military, too, she imagined in her igno- 
rance), and — oh, even rarer sight ! — he was followed 
by a helmeted soldier, who drew the curtain revealing 
the ornate Scrolls of the Law. 

And amid it all a sound broke forth that sent a 
sweetness through her blood. An organ! An organ 
in Synagogue! Ah! here indeed was Angliciza- 
tion. 

It was thin and reedy even to her ears, compared 
with that divine resonance in St. Paul’s: a tinkling 
apology, timidly disconnected from the congregational 
singing, and hovering meekly on the borders of the 
service — she read afterwards that it was only a har- 
monium — yet it brought a strange exaltation, and 
there was an uplifting even to tears in the glittering 
uniforms and nodding plumes. Simon’s eyes met his 
mother’s, and a flash of the old childish love passed 
between them. 

There was a sermon —the text taken with dual 
appropriateness from the Book of Maccabees. Fully 
one in ten of the Jewish volunteers, said the preacher, 
had gone forth to drive out the bold invader of the 
Queen’s dominions. Their beloved country had no 
more devoted citizens than the children of Israel who 


92 ANGLICIZA TION 


had settled under her flag. They had been gratified, 
but not surprised, to see in the Jewish press the names 
of more than seven hundred Jews serving Queen and 
country. Many more had gone unrecorded, so that 
they had proportionally contributed more soldiers — 
from Colonel to bugler-boy — than their mere numbers 
would warrant. So at one in spirit and ideals were 
the Englishman and the Jew whose Scriptures he had 
imbibed, that it was no accident that the Anglophobes 
of Europe were also Anti-Semites. 

And then the congregation rose, while the preacher 
behind the folds of the Union Jack read out the names 
of the Jews who had died for England in the far-off 
veldt. Every head was bent as the names rose on the 
hushed air of the synagogue. It went on and on, this 
list, reeking with each bloody historic field, recalling 
every regiment, British or colonial; on and on in the 
reverent silence, till a black pall seemed to descend, 
inch by inch, overspreading the synagogue. She had 
never dreamed so many of her brethren had died out 
there. Ah! surely they were knit now, these races: 
their friendship sealed in blood ! 

As the soldiers filed out of synagogue, she squeezed 
towards Simon and seized his hand for an instant, 
whispering passionately: ‘My lamb, marry her — we 
are all English alike.’ 

Nor did she ever know that she had said these words 
in Yiddish! 


ANGLICIZA TION 93 


XII 


Now came an enchanting season of confidences; 
the mother, caught up in the glow of this strange love, 
learning to see the girl through the boy’s eyes, though 
the only aid to his eloquence was the photograph of a 
plump little blonde with bewitching dimples. The 
time was not ripe yet for bringing Lucy and her to- 
gether, he explained. In fact, he hadn’t actually 
proposed. His mother understood he was waiting for 
the year of mourning to be up. 

‘But how will you be married?’ she once asked. 

‘Oh, there’s the registrar,’ he said carelessly. 

‘But can’t you make her a proselyte ?’ she ventured 
timidly. 

He coloured. ‘It would be absurd to suddenly start 
‘talking religion to her.’ 

‘But she knows you’re a Jew?’ 

‘Oh, I dare say. I never hid it from her brother, 
so why shouldn’t she know? But her father’s a bit 
of a crank, so I rather avoid the subject.’ 

‘A crank? About Jews?’ 

‘Well, old Winstay has got it into his noddle that 
the Jews are responsible for the war — and that they 
leave the fighting to the English. It’s rather sicken- 
ing: even in South Africa we are not treated as we 





should be, considering 
Her dark eye lost its pathetic humility. ‘But, how 


94 ANGLICIZATION 


can he say that, when you yourself — when you saved 
his ——’ 

‘Well, I suppose just because he knows I was fight- 
ing, he doesn’t think of me as a Jew. It’s a bit illogi- 
cal, I know.’ And he smiled ruefully. ‘But, then, 
logic is not the old boy’s strong point.’ 

‘He seemed such a nice old man,’ said Mrs. Cohn, 
as she recalled the photograph of the white-haired 
cherub writing with a quill at a property desk. 

‘Oh, off his hobby-horse he’s a dear old boy. ‘That’s 
why I don’t help him into the saddle.’ 

‘But how can he be ignorant that we’ve sent seven 
hundred at least to the war?’ she persisted. ‘Why, 
the paper had all their photographs!’ 

‘What paper?’ said Simon, laughing. ‘Do you 
suppose he reads the Jewish what’s-a-name, like you ? 
Why, he’s never heard of it !’ 

‘Then you ought to show him a copy.’ 

‘Oh, mother!’ and he laughed again. ‘That would 
only prove to him there are too many Jews everywhere.’ 

A cloud began to spread over Mrs. Cohn’s hard-won 
content. But apparently it only shadowed her own 
horizon. Simon was as happily full of his Lucy as 
ever. 

Nevertheless, there came a Sunday evening when 
Simon returned from Harrow earlier than his wont, 
and Hannah’s dog-like eye noted that the cloud had at 
last reached his brow. 


ANGLICIZA TION 95 


‘You have had a quarrel?’ she cried. 

‘Only with the old boy.’ 

‘But what about?’ 

‘The old driveller has just joined some League of 
Londoners for the suppression of the immigrant 
alien.’ 

‘But you should have told him we all agree there 
should be decentralization,’ said Mrs. Cohn, quoting 
her favourite Jewish organ. 

‘It isn’t that —it’s the old fellow’s vanity that’s 
hurt. You see, he composed the “‘ Appeal to the Briton,” 
and gloated over it so conceitedly that I couldn’t help 
pointing out the horrible contradictions.’ 





‘But Lucy ’ his mother began anxiously. 

‘Lucy’s a brick. I don’t know what my life would 
have been without the little darling. But listen, mother.’ 
And he drew out a portentous prospectus. ‘They say 
aliens should not be admitted unless they produce a cer- 
tificate of industrial capacity, and in the same breath 
they accuse them of taking the work away from the 
British workman! Now this isn’t a Jewish question, 
and I didn’t raise it as such — just a piece of muddle — 
and even as an Englishman I can’t see how we can ex- 
clude Outlanders here after fighting for the Outland ——’ 

‘But Lucy ——’ his mother interrupted. 

His vehement self-assertion passed into an affec- 
tionate smile. 

‘Lucy was dimpling all over her face. She knows 


96 ANGLICIZATION 


the old boy’s vanity. Of course she couldn’t side with 
me openly.’ 
‘But what will happen? Will you go there again?’ 
The cloud returned to his brow. ‘Oh, well, we’ll see.’ 
A letter from Lucy saved him the trouble of deciding 
the point. 


‘DEAR SILLY OLD SIM,’ it ran, 

‘Father has been going on dreadfully, so you had 
better wait a few Sundays till he has cooled down. 
After all, you yourself admit there is a grievance of 
congestion and high rents in the East End. And it is 
only natural — isn’t it ? — that after shedding our blood 
and treasure for the Empire we should not be in a mood 
to see our country overrun by dirty aliens.’ 


‘Dirty!’ muttered Simon, as he read. ‘Has she 
seen the Christian slums — Flower and Dean Street?’ 
And his handsome Oriental brow grew duskier with 
anger. It did not clear till he came to: — 


‘Let us meet at the Crystal Palace next Saturday, 
dear quarrelsome person. ‘Three o’clock, in the Pom- 
peian Room. I have got an aunt at Sydenham, and 
I can go in to tea after the concert and hear all about the 
missionary work in the South Sea Islands.’ 


XIII 


Ensued a new phase in the relation of Simon and 
Lucy. Once they had met in freedom, neither felt 


ANGLICIZA TION 97 


inclined to revert to the restricted courtship of the 
drawing-room. Even though their chat was merely 
of books and music and pictures, it was delicious to 
make their own atmosphere, untroubled by the flip- 
pancy of the brother or the earnestness of the father. 
In the presence of Lucy’s artistic knowledge Simon 
was at once abashed and stimulated. She moved in 
a delicate world of symphonies and silver-point drawings 
of whose very existence he had been unaware, and rev- 
erence quickened the sense of romance which their secret 
meetings had already enhanced. 

Once or twice he spoke of resuming his visits to 
Harrow, but the longer he delayed the more difficult 
the conciliatory visit grew. 

‘Father is now deeper in the League than ever,’ she told 
him. ‘He has joined the committee, and the prospec- 
tus has gone forth in all its glorious self-contradiction.’ 

‘But, considering I am the son of an alien, and I 
have fought for : 





“There, there! quarrelsome person,’ she interrupted 
laughingly. ‘No, no, no, you had better not come till 
you can forget your remote genealogy. You see, even 
now father doesn’t quite realize you are a Jew. He 
thinks you have a strain of Jewish blood, but are in 
every other respect a decent Christian body.’ 

‘Christian !’ cried Simon in horror. 

“Why not? You fought side by side with my brother; 


you ate ham with us.’ 
H 


98 ANGLICIZATION 


Simon blushed hotly. ‘But, Lucy, you don’t think 
religion is ham ?’ 

‘What, then? Merely Shem?’ she laughed. 

Simon laughed too. How clever she was! ‘But you 
know I never could believe in the Trinity and all that. 
And, what’s more, I don’t believe you do yourself.’ 

‘It isn’t exactly what one believes. I was baptized 
into the Church of England — I feel myself a member. 
Really, Sim, you are a dreadfully argumentative and 
quarrelsome person.’ 

‘V’ll never quarrel with you, Lucy,’ he said, half 
entreatingly; for somehow he felt a shiver of cold at 
the word ‘baptized,’ as though himself plunged into 
the font. 

In this wise did both glide away from any deep issue 
or decision till the summer itself glided away. Mrs. 
Cohn, anxiously following the courtship through Sim’s 
love-smitten eyes, her suggestion that the girl be brought 
to see her received with equal postponement, began to 
fret for the great thing to come to pass. One cannot 
be always heroically stiffened to received the cavalry 
of communal criticism. Waiting weakens the back- 
bone. But she concealed from her boy these flaccid 
relapses. 

“You said you’d bring her to see me when she re- 
turned from the seaside,’ she ventured to remind him. 

‘So I did; but now her father is dragging her away 
to Scotland.’ | 


ANGLICIZA TION 99 


‘You ought to get married the moment she gets back.’ 

‘I can’t expect her to rush things— with her father 
to square. Still, you are not wrong, mother. It’s 
high time we came to a definite understanding between 
ourselves at least.’ 

‘What!’ gasped Mrs. Cohn. ‘Aren’t you engaged?’ 

‘Oh, in a way, of course. But we’ve never said so 
in so many words.’ 

For fear this should be the ‘English’ way, Mrs. 
Cohn forbore to remark that the definiteness of the 
Sugarman method was not without compensations. 
She merely applauded Simon’s more sensible mood. 

But Mrs. Cohn was fated to a further season of fret. 
Day after day the ‘fat letters’ arrived with the Scottish 
postmark and the faint perfume that always stirred 
her own wistful sense of lost romance — something 
far-off and delicious, with the sweetness of roses and the 
salt of tears. And still the lover, floating in his golden 
mist, vouchsafed: her no definite news. 

One night she found him restive beyond his wont. 
She knew the reason. For two days there had been no 
scented letter, and she saw how he started at every 
creak of the garden-gate, as he waited for the last post. 
When at length a step was heard crunching on the 
gravel, he rushed from the room, and Mrs. Cohn heard 
the hall-door open. Her ear, disappointed of the rat- 
tat, morbidly followed every sound; but it seemed a 
long time before her boy’s returning footstep reached 


100 ANGLICIZATION 


her. The strange, slow drag of it worked upon her 
nerves, and her heart grew sick with premonition. 

He held out the letter towards her. His face was 
white. ‘She cannot marry me, because I am a Jew,’ 
he said tonelessly. 

‘Cannot marry you!’ she whispered huskily. ‘Oh, 
but this must not be! I will go to the father; I will 
explain! You saved his son — he owes you his daugh- 
ter. 

He waved her hopelessly back to her seat — for she 
had started up. ‘It isn’t the father, it’s herself. Now 
that I won’t let her drift any longer, she can’t bring 
herself to it. She’s honest, anyway, my little Lucy. 
She won’t fall back on the old Jew-baiter.’ 

‘But how dare she — how dare she think herself 
above you!’ Her dog-like eyes were blazing yet once 
again. 

‘Why are you Jews surprised?’ he said bitterly. 
‘You’ve held yourself aloof from the others long enough, 
God knows. Yet you wonder they’ve got their preju- 
dices, too.’ 

And, suddenly laying*his head on the table, he broke 
into sobs — sobs that tore at his mother’s heart, that 
were charged with memories of his ancient tears, of 
the days of paternal wrath and the rending of ‘The 
Pirates of Pechili.’ And, again, as in the days when 
his boyish treasures were changed to ashes, she stole 
towards him, with an involuntary furtive look to see 


ANGLICIZA TION 101 


if S. Cohn’s back was turned, and laid her hands upon 
his heaving shoulders. But he shook her off! ‘Why 
didn’t a Boer bullet strike me down?’ Then with a 
swift pang of remorse he raised his contorted face and 
drew hers close against it — their love the one thing 
saved from Anglicization. 











ike JEWISH TRINITY 


I 


WirH the Christian Mayoress of Middleton to take in 
to dinner at Sir Asher Aaronsberg’s, Leopold Barstein 
as a Jewish native of that thriving British centre, should 
have felt proud and happy. But Barstein was young 
and a sculptor, fresh from the Paris schools and Salon 
triumphs. He had long parted company with Jews 
and Judaism, and to his ardent irreverence even the 
Christian glories of Middleton seemed unspeakably 
parochial. In Paris he had danced at night on the 
Boule Miche out of sheer joy of life, and joined in 
choruses over midnight bocks; and London itself now 
seemed drab and joyless, though many a gay circle 
welcomed the wit and high spirits and even the physical 
graces of this fortunate young man who seemed to 
shed a blonde radiance all around him. The factories 
of Middleton, which had manufactured Sir Asher 
Aaronsberg, ex-M.P., and nearly all his wealthy guests, 
were to his artistic eyeran outrage upon a beautiful 
planet, and he was still in that crude phase of juvenile 
revolt in which one speaks one’s thoughts of the mess 


humanity has made of its world. But, unfortunately, 
105 


106 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


the Mayoress of Middleton was deafish, so that he 
could not even shock her with his epigrams. It was . 
extremely disconcerting to have his bland blasphemies 
met with an equally bland smile. On his other hand 
sat Mrs. Samuels, the buxom and highly charitable 
relict of ‘The People’s Clothier,’ whose ugly pictorial 
posters had overshadowed Barstein’s youth. Little 
wonder that the artist’s glance frequently wandered 
across the great shining table towards a girl who, if 
they had not been so plaguily intent on honouring his 
fame, might have now been replacing the Mayoress at 
his side. ‘True, the girl was merely a Jewess, and he 
disliked the breed. But Mabel Aaronsberg was unex- 
pected. She had a statuesque purity of outline and com- 
plexion; seemed, indeed, worthy of being a creation of 
hisown. How the tedious old manufacturer could have 
produced this marmoreal prodigy provided a problem 
for the sculptor, as he almost silently ate his way through 
the long and exquisite menu. 

Not that Sir Asher himself was unpicturesque. In- 
deed, he was the very picture of the bluff and burly 
Briton, white-bearded like Father Christmas. But he 
did not seem to lead to yonder vision of poetry and 
purity. Lady Aaronsberg, who might have supplied 
the missing link, was dead — before even arriving at 
ladyship, alas! — and when she was alive Barstein had 
not enjoyed the privilege of moving in these high munici- 
pal circles. This he owed entirely to his foreign fame, 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 107 


and to his invitation by the Corporation to help in the 
organization of a local Art Exhibition. 

‘I do admire Sir Asher,’ the Mayoress broke in sud- 
denly upon his reflections; ‘he seems to me exactly 
like your patriarchs.’ 

A Palestinian patriarch was the last person Sir Asher, 
with his hovering lackeys, would have recalled to the 
sculptor, who, in so far as the patriarchs ever crossed 
his mind, conceived them as resembling Rembrandt’s 
Rabbis. But he replied blandly: ‘Our patriarchs 
were polygamists.’ 

‘Exactly,’ assented the deaf Mayoress. 

Barstein, disconcerted, yearned to repeat his state- 
ment in a shout, but neither the pitch nor the propo- 
sition seemed suitable to the dinner-table. The 
Mayoress added ecstatically: ‘You can imagine him 
sitting at the door of his tent, talking with the 
angels.’ 

This time Barstein did shout, but with laughter. 
All eyes turned a bit enviously in his direction. ‘You’re 
having all the fun down there,’ called out Sir Asher, 
benevolently; and the bluff Briton — even to the north- 
erly burr — was so vividly stamped upon Barstein’s 
mind that he wondered the more that the Mayoress 
could see him as anything but the prosy, provincial, 
whilom Member of Parliament he so transparently 
was. ‘A mere literary illusion,’ he thought. ‘She has 
read the Bible, and now reads Sir Asher into it. As 


108 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


well see a Saxon pirate or a Norman jongleur in a 
modern Londoner.’ 

As if to confirm Barstein’s vision of the bluff and 
burly Briton, Sir Asher was soon heard over the clatter 
of conversation protesting vehemently against the views 
of Tom Fuller, the degenerate son of a Tory squire. 

‘Give Ireland Home Rule?’ he was crying pas- 
sionately. ‘Oh, my dear Mr. Fuller, it would be the 
beginning of the end of our Empire!’ 

‘But the Irish have as much right to govern themselves 
as we have!’ the young Englishman maintained. 

‘They would not so much govern themselves as mis- 
govern the Protestant minority,’ cried Sir Asher, be- 
coming almost epigrammatic in his excitement. ‘Home 
Rule simply means the triumph of Roman Cathol- 
icism.’ 

It occurred to the cynical Barstein that even the 
defeat of Roman Catholicism meant no victory for 
Judaism, but he stayed his tongue with a salted almond. 
Let the Briton make the running. This the young 
gentleman proceeded to do at a great pace. 

‘Then how about Home Rule for India? There’s 
no Catholic majority there!’ 

‘Give up India!’ Sir Asher opened horrified eyes. 
This heresy was new to him. ‘Give up the brightest 
jewel in the British crown! And let the Russian bear 
come and swallow it up! No, no! A thousand times 
no!’ Sir Asher even gestured with his fork in his 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 109 


patriotic fervour, forgetting he was not on the platform. 

‘So I imagine the patriarchs to have talked!’ said 
the Mayoress, admiringly observing his animation. 
Whereat the sculptor laughed once more. He was 
amused, too, at the completeness with which the lion 
of Judah had endued himself with the skin of the Brit- 
ish lion. To a cosmopolitan artist this bourgeois 
patriotism was peculiarly irritating. But soon his eyes 
wandered again towards Miss Aaronsberg, and he forgot 
trivialities. 


II 


The end of the meal was punctuated, not by the 
rising of the ladies, but by the host’s assumption of a 
black cap, which popped up from his coat-tail pocket. 
With his head thus orientally equipped for prayer, Sir 
Asher suddenly changed into a Rembrandtesque figure, 
his white beard hiding the society shirtfront; and as he 
began intoning the grace in Hebrew, the startled Bar- 
stein felt that the Mayoress had at least a superficial 
justification. ‘There came to him a touch of new and 
artistic interest in this prosy, provincial ex-M.P., who, 
environed by powdered footmen, sat at the end of 
his glittering dinner-table uttering the language of the 
ancient prophets; and he respected at least the sturdi- 
ness with which Miss Aaronsberg’s father wore his faith, 
like a phylactery, on his forehead. It said much for 
his character that these fellow-citizens of his had once 


110 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


elected him as their Member, despite his unpopular 
creed and race, and were now willing to sit at his table 
under this tedious benediction. Sir Asher did not even 
let them off with the shorter form of grace invented by 
a wise Rabbi for these difficult occasions, yet so far as 
was visible it was only the Jewish guests — comically 
distinguished by serviettes shamefacedly dabbed on 
their heads — who fidgeted under the pious torrent. 
These were no doubt fearful of boring the Christians 
whose precious society the Jew enjoyed on a parlous 
tenure. In the host’s son Julius a superadded intel- 
lectual impatience was traceable. He had brought 
back from Oxford a contempt for his father’s creed 
which was patent to every Jew save Sir Asher. Bar- 
stein, observing all this uneasiness, became curiously 
angry with his fellow-Jews, despite that he had scrupu- 
lously forborne to cover his own head with his serviette ; 
a racial pride he had not known latent in him surged up 
through all his cosmopolitanism, and he maliciously 
trusted that the brave Sir Asher would pray his longest. 
He himself had been a tolerable Hebraist in his forcedly 
pious boyhood, and though he had neither prayed nor 
heard any Hebrew prayers for many a year, his new 
artistic interest led him to listen to the grace, and to 
disentangle the meaning from the obscuring layers of 
verbal association and from the peculiar chant en- 
livened by occasional snatches of melody with which 
it was intoned. 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 111 


How he had hated this grace as a boy — this pious 
task-work that almost spoilt the anticipation of meals! 
But to-night, after so long an interval, he could look 
at it without prejudice, and with artistic aloofness 
render to himself a true impression of its spiritual value. 

‘We thank Thee, O Lord our God, because Thou didst 
give as an heritage unto our fathers a desirable, good, and 
ample land, and because Thou didst bring us forth, O 
Lord our God, from the land of Egypt, and didst deliver 
us from the house of bondage : 





Barstein heard no more for the moment; the para- 
dox of this retrospective gratitude was too absorbing. 
What! Sir Asher was thankful because over three 
thousand years ago his ancestors had obtained — not 
without hard fighting for it — a land which had already 
been lost again for eighteen centuries. What a mar- 
vellous long memory for a race to have! 

Delivered from the house of bondage, forsooth! Sir 
Asher himself — and here a musing smile crossed the 
artist’s lips — had never even known a house of bondage, 
unless, indeed, the House of Commons (from which he 
had been delivered by the Radical reaction) might be 
so regarded, and his own house was, as he was fond of 
saying, Liberty Hall. But that the Russzan Jew should 
still rejoice in the redemption from Egypt! O miracle of 
pious patience! O sublime that grazed the ridiculous! 

But Sir Asher was still praying on: 

‘Have mercy, O Lord our God, upon Israel Thy people, 


112 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


upon Jerusalem Thy city, upon Zion the abiding place of 
Thy glory, upon the kingdom of the house of David, Thine 
anointed... . 

Barstein lost himself in a fresh revery. Here was 
indeed the Palestinian patriarch. Not with the cor- 
poration of Middleton, nor the lobbies of Westminster, 
not with his colossal business, not even with the glories 
of the British Empire, was Sir Asher’s true heart. He 
had but caught phrases from the environment. To 
his deepest self he was not even a Briton. ‘Have 
mercy, O Lord, upon Israel Thy people.’ Despite all 
his outward pomp and prosperity, he felt himself one 
of that dispersed and maltreated band of brothers who 
had for eighteen centuries resisted alike the storm of 
persecution and the sunshine of tolerance, and whose 
one consolation in the long exile was the dream of Zion. 
The artist in Barstein began to thrill. What more 
fascinating than to catch sight of the dreamer beneath 
the manufacturer, the Hebrew visionary behind the 
English M.P. ! 

This palatial dwelling-place with | its liveried lackeys 
was, then, no fort of Philistinism in which an artist 
must needs asphyxiate, but a very citadel of the spirit. 
A new respect for his host began to steal upon him. 
Involuntarily he sought the face of the daughter; the 
secret of her beauty was, after all, not so mysterious. 
Old Asher had a soul, and ‘the soul is form and doth 
the body make.’ 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 118 


Unconscious of the effect he was producing on the 
sensitive artist, the Rembrandtesque figure prayed on: 
‘And rebuild Jerusalem, the holy city, speedily and in 
our days... . 

It was the climax of the romance that had so strangely 
stolen over the British dinner-table. Rebuild Jeru- 
salem to-day! Did Jews really conceive it as a con- 
temporary possibility? Barstein went hot and cold. 
The idea was absolutely novel to him; evidently as 
a boy he had not understood his own prayers or his 
own people. All his imagination was inflamed. He 
conjured up a Zion built up by such virile hands as Sir 
Asher’s, and peopled by such beautiful mothers as his 
daughter: the great Empire that would spring from 
the unity and liberty of a race which even under dis- 
persion and oppression was one of the most potent 
peoples on the planet. And thus, when the ladies at 
last rose, he was in so deep a reverie that he almost 
forgot to rise too, and when he did rise, he accompanied 
the ladies outside the door. It was only Miss Aarons- 
berg’s tactful ‘Don’t you want to smoke?’ that saved 
him. 

‘Almost as long a grace as the dinner!’ Tom Fuller 
murmured to him as he returned to the table. ‘Do 
the Jews say that after every meal?’ 

‘They’re supposed to,’ Barstein replied, a little jarred, 
as he picked up a cigar. 

‘No wonder they beat the Christians,’ observed the 

I 


114 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


young Radical, who evidently took original views. 
‘So much time for digestion would enable any race to 
survive in this age of quick lunches. In America, now, 
they should rule the roast. Literally,’ he added, with 
a laugh. 

‘It’s a beautiful grace,’ said Barstein rebukingly. 
‘The glamour of Zion thrown over the prose of 
diet.’ 

‘You’re not a Jew?’ said Tom, with a sudden sus- 
picion. 

‘Yes, I am,’ the artist replied, with a dignity that 
surprised himself. 

‘I should never have taken you for one!’ said Tom, 
ingenuously. 

Despite himself, Barstein felt a thrill of satisfaction. 
‘But why?’ he asked himself, instantly. ‘To feel 
complimented at not being taken for a Jew — what 
does it mean? Is there a core of anti-Semitism in my 
nature? Has our race reached self-contempt ?’ 

‘I beg your pardon,’ Tom went on. ‘I didn’t mean 
to be irreverent. I appreciate the picturesqueness of 
it all — hearing the very language of the Bible, and all 
that. And I do sympathize with your desire for Jewish 
Home Rule.’ 

‘My desire?’ murmured the artist, taken aback. 
Sir Asher here interrupted them by pressing his ’48 
port upon both, and directing the artist’s attention in 
particular to the pictures that hung around the stately 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 115 


dining-room. There was a Gainsborough, a Reynolds, 
a Landseer. He drew Barstein round the walls. 

‘I am very fond of the English school,’ he said. His 
cap was back in his coat-tail, and he had become again 
the bluff and burly Briton. 

‘You don’t patronize the Italians at all?’ asked the 
artist. 

‘No,’ said Sir Asher. He lowered his voice. ‘Be- 
tween you and I,’ said he, —it was his main fault of 
grammar, — ‘in Italian art one is never safe from the 
Madonna, not to mention her Son.’ It was a fresh 
reminder of the Palestinian patriarch. Sir Asher never 
discussed theology except with those who agreed with 
him. Nor did he ever, whether in private or in public, 
breathe an unfriendly word against his Christian fellow- 
citizens. All were sons of the same Father, as he would 
frequently say from the platform. But in his heart of 
hearts he cherished a contempt, softened by stupe- 
faction, for the arithmetical incapacity of ‘Trinita- 
rians. 

Christianity under any other aspect did not exist for 
him. It was a blunder impossible to a race with a 
genius for calculation. ‘How can three be one?’ he 
would demand witheringly of his cronies. The ques- 
tion was in his eye now as he summed up Italian art 
to the sculptor, and a faint smile twitching about his 
lips invited his fellow-Jew to share with him his feeling 
of spiritual and intellectual superiority to the poor blind 


116 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


Christians at his table, as well as to Christendom gen- 
erally. 

But the artist refused to come up on the pedestal. 
‘Surely the Madonna was a very beautiful conception,’ 
he said. 

Sir Asher looked startled. ‘Ah, yes, you are an 
artist,’ he remembered. ‘You think only of the beau- 
tiful outside. But how can there be three-in-one or 
one-in-three ?’ 

Barstein did not reply, and Sir Asher added in a low 
scornful tone: ‘Neither confounding the persons, nor 
dividing the substance.’ 


III 


A sudden commission recalled Barstein to town 
before he could even pay his after-dinner call. But 
the seed sown in his soul that evening was not to be 
stifled. This seed was nothing less than the idea of a 
national revival of his people. He hunted up his old 
prayer-books, and made many discoveries as his mod- 
ern consciousness depolarized page upon page that 
had never in boyhood been anything to him but a 
series of syllables to be gabbled off as rapidly as pos- 
sible, when their meaning was not still further overlaid 
by being sung slowly to a tune. ‘I might as well have 
turned a prayer-wheel,’ he said regretfully, as he per- 
ceived with what iron tenacity the race beaten down 
by the Roman Empire and by every power that had 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 117 


reigned since, had preserved its aspiration for its old 
territory. And this mystery of race and blood, this 
beauty of unforgetting aspiration, was all physically 
incarnate in Mabel Aaronsberg. 

He did not move one inch out of his way to see her, 
because he saw her all day along. She appeared all 
over his studio in countless designs in clay. But from 
this image of the beauty of the race, his deepening 
insight drove him to interpret the tragedy also, and he 
sought out from the slums and small synagogues of the 
East End strange forlorn figures, with ragged curls 
and wistful eyes. It was from one of these figures that 
he learnt to his astonishment that the dream of Zion, 
whereof he imagined himself the sole dreamer, was 
shared by myriads, and had even materialized into a 
national movement. 

He joined the movement, and it led him into strange 
conventicles. He was put on a committee which met 
in a little back-room, and which at first treated him 
and his arguments with deference, soon with famil- 
larity, and occasionally with contempt. Hucksters and 
cigar-makers held forth much more eloquently on their 
ideals than he could, with far greater command of 
Talmudic quotation, while their knowledge of how to 
run their local organization was naturally superior. 
But throughout all the mean surroundings, the petty 
wrangles, and the grotesque jealousies that tarnished 
the movement he retained his innner exaltation. He 


118 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


had at last found himself and found his art. He fell 
to work upon a great Michel-angelesque figure of the 
awakening genius of his people, blowing the trumpet 
of resurrection. It was sent for exhibition to a Zionist 
Congress, where it caused a furore, and where the artist 
met other artists who had long been working under the 
very inspiration which was so novel to him, and whose 
work was all around him in plaque and picture, in bust 
and book, and even postcard. Some of them were 
setting out for Palestine to start a School of Arts and 
Crafts. 

Barstein began to think of joining them. Meantime 
the Bohemian circles which he had adorned with his 
gaiety and good-fellowship had been wondering what 
had become of him. His new work in the Exhibitions 
supplied a sort of answer, and the few who chanced to 
meet him reported dolefully that he was a changed man. 
Gone was the light-hearted and light-footed dancer of 
the Paris pavement. Silent the licentious wit of the 
neo-Pagan. ‘This was a new being with brooding brow 
and pained eyes that lit up only when they beheld his 
dream. Never had Bohemia known such a transfor- 
mation. 


IV 


But a change came over the spirit of the dream. 
Before he could seriously plan out his journey to Pales- 
tine, he met Mabel Aaronsberg in the flesh. She was 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 119 


staying in town for the season in charge of an aunt, 
and the meeting occurred in one of the galleries of the 
newer art, in front of Mabel’s own self in marble. She 
praised the Psyche without in the least recognising 
herself, and Barstein, albeit disconcerted, could not 
but admit how far his statue was from the breathing 
beauty of the original. 

After this the Jewish borderland of Bohemia, where 
writers and painters are courted, began to see Barstein 
again. But, unfortunately, this was not Mabel’s circle, 
and Barstein was reduced to getting himself invited to 
that Jewish Bayswater, his loathing for which had not 
been overcome even by his new-found nationalism. 
Here, amid hundreds of talking and dancing shadows, 
with which some shadowy self of his own danced and 
talked, he occasionally had a magic hour of reality — 
with Mabel. 

One could not be real and not talk of the national 
dream. Mabel, who took most of her opinions from 
her brother Julius, was frankly puzzled, though her 
marmoreal gift of beautiful silence saved her lover 
from premature shocks. She had, indeed, scarcely 
heard of such things. Zionism was something in the 
East End. Nobody in her class ever mentioned it. 
But, then, Barstein was a sculptor and strange, and, 
besides, he did not look at all like a Jew, so it didn’t 
sound so horrible in his mouth. His lithe figure stood 
out almost Anglo-Saxon amid the crowds of hulking 


120 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


undersized young men, and though his manners were 
not so good as a Christian’s —she never forgot his 
blunder at her father’s dinner-party — still, he looked 
up to one with almost a Christian’s adoration, instead 
of sizing one up with an Oriental’s calculation. These 
other London Jews thought her provincial, she knew, 
whereas Barstein had one day informed her she was 
universal. Julius, too, had admired Barstein’s sculp- 
ture, the modern note in which had been hailed by 
the Oxford elect. But what most fascinated Mabel 
was the constant eulogy of her lover’s work in the 
Christian papers; and when at last the formal proposal 
came, it found her fearful only of her father’s dis- 
approval. 

‘He’s so orthodox,’ she murmured, as they sat in 
a rose-garlanded niche at a great Jewish Charity Ball, 
lapped round by waltz-music and the sweetness of love 
confessed. 

‘Well, I’m not so wicked as I was,’ he smiled. 

‘But you smoke on the Sabbath, Leo — you told 
me.’ 

‘And you told me your brother Julius does the same.’ 

‘Yes, but father doesn’t know. If Julius wants to 
smoke on Friday evening, he always goes to his own 
room.’ 

‘And I shan’t smoke in your father’s.’ 

‘No — but you’ll tell him. You’re so outspoken.’ 

‘Well, I won’t tell him — unless he asks me.’ 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 121 


She looked sad. ‘He won’t ask you—he’ll never 
get as far.’ 

He smiled confidently. ‘You’re not very encourag- 
ing, dear; what’s the matter with me?’ 

‘Everything. You’re an artist, with all sorts of 
queer notions. And you’re not so’ —she blushed and 
hesitated — ‘not so rich ——’ 

He pressed her fingers. ‘Yes, Iam; I’m the richest 
man here.’ 

A little delighted laugh broke from her lips, though 
they went on: ‘But you told me your profits are small 
— marble is so dear.’ 

‘So is celibacy. I shall economize dreadfully by 
marrying.’ 

She pouted; his flippancy seemed inadequate to the 
situation, and he seemed scarcely to realize that she 
was an heiress. But he continued to laugh away her 
fears. She was so beautiful and he was so strong 
— what could stand between them? Certainly not the 
Palestinian patriarch with whose inmost psychology he 
had, fortunately, become in such cordial sympa- 
thy. 

But Mabel’s pessimism was not to be banished even 
by the supper champagne. ‘They had secured a little 
table for two, and were recklessly absorbed in them- 
selves. 

‘At the worst, we can elope to Palestine,’ he said at 
last, gaily serious. 


122 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


Mabel shuddered. ‘Live entirely among Jews!’ 
she cried. 

The radiance died suddenly out of his face; it was 
as if she had thrust the knife she was wielding through 
his heart. Her silent reception of his nationalist 
rhapsodies he had always taken for agreement. 

Nor might Mabel have undeceived him had his ideas 
remained Platonic. ‘Their irruption into the world of 
practical politics, into her own life, was, however, 
another pair of shoes. Since Barstein had brought 
Zionism to her consciousness, she had noted that dis- 
tinguished Christians were quite sympathetic, but this 
was the one subject on which Christian opinion failed 
to impress Mabel. ‘Zionism’s all very well for Chris- 
tians — they’re in no danger of having to go to Pales- 
tine,’ she had reflected shrewdly. 

‘And why couldn’t you live entirely among Tees 
Barstein asked slowly. 

Mabel drew a great breath, as if throwing off a 
suffocating weight. ‘One couldn’t breathe,’ she ex- 
plained. 

‘Aren’t you living among Jews now?’ 

‘Don’t look so glum, silly. You don’t want Jews 
as background as well as foreground. A great Ghetto!’ 
And again she shuddered instinctively. 

‘Every other people is background as well as fore- 
ground. And you don’t call France a Ghetto or Italy 
a Ghetto?’ There was anti-Semitism, he felt — un- 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 128 


conscious anti-Semitism — behind Mabel’s instinctive 
repugnance to an aggregation of Jews. And he knew 
that her instinct would be shared by every Jew in that 
festive aggregation around him. His heart sank. 
Never — even in those East End back-rooms where the 
pitiful disproportion of his consumptive-looking col- 
laborators to their great task was sometimes borne in 
dismally upon him — had he felt so black a despair as 
in this brilliant supper-room, surrounded by all that 
was strong and strenuous in the race — lawyers and 
soldiers, and men of affairs, whose united forces and 
finances could achieve almost anything they set their 
heart upon. 

‘Jews can’t live off one another,’ Mabel explained 
with an air of philosophy. 

Barstein did not reply. He was asking himself with 
an artist’s analytical curiosity whence came this sui- 
cidal anti-Semitism. Was it the self-contempt natural 
to a race that had not the strength to build and fend 
for itself? No, alas! it did not even spring from so 
comparatively noble a source. It was merely a part of 
their general imitation of their neighbours — Jews, re- 
flecting everything, had reflected even the dislike for the 
Jew; only since the individual could not dislike him- 
self, he applied the dislike to the race. And this un- 
conscious assumption of the prevailing point of view 
was quickened by the fact that the Jewish firstcomers 
were always aware of an existence on sufferance, with 


124 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


their slowly-won privileges jeopardized if too many 
other Jews came in their wake. He consulted his own 
pre-Zionist psychology. ‘Yes,’ he decided. ‘Every 
Jew who moves into our country, our city, our watering- 
place, our street even, seems to us an invader or an 
interloper. He draws attention to us, he accentuates our 
difference from the normal, he increases the chance of 
the renewal of Rishus (malice). And so we become anti- 
Semites ourselves. But by what a comical confusion 
of logic is it that we carry over the objection to Jewish 
ageregation even to an aggregation in Palestine, in 
our own land! Or is it only too logical? Is it that 
the rise of a Jewish autonomous power would be a 
standing reminder to our fellow-citizens that we others 
are not so radically British or German or French or 
American as we have vaunted ourselves? Are we afraid 
of being packed off to Palestine and is the fulfilment 
of the dream of eighteen centuries our deadliest dread ?’ 

The thought forced from him a sardonic smile. 

‘And I feared you were like King Henry — never 
going to smile again.’ Mabel smiled back in relief. 

‘We’re such a ridiculous people,’ he answered, his 
smile fading into sombreness. ‘Neither fish, flesh, 
fowl, nor good red herring.’ 

‘Well, finish your good white fowl,’ laughed Mabel. 
She had felt her hold over him slipping, and her own 
apprehensions now vanished in the effort to banish his 
gloom. 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 125 


But she had only started him on a new tack. ‘Fowl!’ 
he cried grimly. ‘Kosher, of course, but with bits of 
fried Wurst to ape the scraps of bacon. And presently 
we shall be having water ices to simulate cream. We 
can’t even preserve our dietary individuality. Truly 
said Feuerbach, ‘‘Der Mensch ist. was er isst.” In 
Palestine we shall at least dare to be true to our own 
gullets.” He laughed bitterly. 

“You’re not very romantic,’ Mabel pouted. Indeed, 
this Barstein, whose mere ideal could so interrupt the 
rhapsodies due to her admissions of affection, was dis- 
tinctly unsatisfactory. She touched his hand furtively 
under the tablecloth. 

‘After all, she is very young,’ he thought, thrilling. 
And youth was plastic — he, the sculptor, could surely 
mould her. Besides, was she not Sir Asher’s daughter ? 
She must surely have inherited some of his love for 
Palestine and his people. It was this Philistine set 
that had spoiled her. Julius, too, that young Oxford 
prig, — he reflected illogically, — had no doubt been a 
baleful influence. 

‘Shall I give you some almond-pudding ?’ he replied 
tenderly. 

Mabel laughed uneasily. ‘I ask for romance, and 
you offer me almond-pudding. Oh, I should like to go 
to a Jewish party where there wasn’t almond-pudding !’ 

“You shall — in Palestine,’ he laughed back. 

She pouted again. ‘All roads lead to Palestine.’ 


126 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


‘They do,’ he said seriously. ‘Without Palestine 
our past is a shipwreck and our future a quicksand.’ 

She looked frightened again. ‘But what should we 
do there? We can’t pray all day long.’ 

‘Of course not,’ he said eagerly. ‘There’s the new 
generation to train for its glorious future. I shall teach 
in the Arts and Crafts School. Bezalel, it’s called; 
isn’t that a beautifulname? It’s from Bezalel, the-first 
man mentioned in the Bible as filled with Divine wis- 
dom and understanding in all manner of workmanship.’ 

She shook her head. ‘You'll be excommunicated. 
The Palestine Rabbis always excommunicate every- 
thing and everybody.’ 

He laughed. ‘What do you know about Palestine?’ 

‘More than you think. Father gets endless letters 
from there with pressed flowers and citrons, and olive- 
wood boxes and paper-knives —a perennial shower. 
The letters are generally in the most killing English. 
And he won’t let me laugh at them because he has a 
vague feeling that even Palestine spelling and grammar 
are holy.’ | 

Barstein laughed again. ‘We’ll send all the Rabbis 
to Jericho.’ 

She smiled, but retorted: ‘That’s where they'll send 
you, you maker of graven images. Why, your very 
profession is forbidden.’ 

‘Tl corner ’em with this very Bezalel text. The 
cutting of stones is just one of the arts which God says 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 127 


He had inspired Bezalel with. Besides, you forget my 
statue at the Bale Congress.’ 

‘Bale isn’t Palestine. There’s nothing but super- 
stition and squalor, and I’m sorry to say father’s always 
bolstering it all up with his cheques.’ 

‘Bravo, Sir Asher! Unconsciously he has been 
bolstering up the eventual Renaissance. Your father 
and his kind have kept the seed alive; we shall bring it 
to blossom.’ 

His prophetic assurance cast a fresh shade of appre- 
hension over her marmoreal brow. But her face light- 
ened with a sudden thought. ‘Well, perhaps, after all, 
we shan’t need to elope.’ 

‘I never thought for a moment we should,’ he an- 
swered as cheerfully. ‘But, all the same, we can spend 
our honeymoon in Palestine.’ 

‘Oh, I don’t mind that,’ said Mabel. ‘Lots of 
Christians do that. There was a Cook’s party went out 
from Middleton for last Easter.’ 

The lover was too pleased with her acquiescence in 
the Palestinian honeymoon to analyse the terms in 
which it was given. He looked into her eyes, and saw 
there the Shechinah — the divine glory that once rested 
on Zion. 


V 


It was in this happier mood that Barstein ran down 
to Middleton to plead his suit verbally with Sir Asher 


128 «THE JEWISH TRINITY 


Aaronsberg. Mabel had feared to commit their fates 
to a letter, whether from herself or her lover. A plump 
negative would be so difficult to fight against. A 
personal interview permitted one to sound the ground, 
to break the thing delicately, to reason, to explain, 
to charm away objections. It was clearly the man’s 
duty to face the music. 

Not that Barstein expected anything but the music 
of the Wedding March. He was glad that his original 
contempt for Sir Asher had been exchanged for sincere 
respect, and that the bluff Briton was a mere veneer. 
It was to the Palestinian patriarch that he would pour 
out his hopes and his dreams. 

Alas! he found only the bluff Briton, and a Briton 
no longer genially, but bluntly, bluff. 

‘It is perfectly impossible.’ 

Barstein, bewildered, pleaded for enlightenment. 
Was he not pious enough, or not rich enough, too 
artistic or too low-born? Or did Sir Asher consider 
his past life improper or his future behaviour dubious? 
Let Sir Asher say. 

But Sir Asher would not say. ‘I am not bound to 
give my reasons. We are all proud of your work — it 
confers honour on our community. ‘The Mayor alluded 
to it only yesterday.’ He spoke in his best platform 
manner. ‘But to receive you into my family — that 
is another matter.’ 

And all the talk advanced things no further. 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 129 


‘It would be an entirely unsuitable match.’ Sir 
Asher caressed his long beard with an air of finality. 

With a lover’s impatience, Barstein had made the 
mistake of seeking Sir Asher in his counting-house, 
where the municipal magnate sat among his solidities. 
The mahogany furniture, the iron safes, the ledgers, 
the silent obsequious clerks and attendants through 
whom Barstein had had to penetrate, the factory build- 
ings stretching around, with their sense of throbbing 
machinery and disciplined workers, all gave the burly 
Briton a background against which visions and emo- 
tions seemed as unreal as ghosts under gaslight. The 
artist felt all this solid life closing round him like the 
walls of a torture-chamber, squeezing out his confidence, 
his aspirations, his very life. 

‘Then you prefer to break your daughter’s heart !’ 
he cried desperately. 

‘Break my daughter’s heart!’ echoed Sir Asher in 
amaze. It was apparently a new aspect to him. 

‘You don’t suppose she won’t suffer dreadfully?’ 
Barstein went on, perceiving his advantage. 

‘Break her heart!’ repeated Sir Asher, startled out 
of his discreet reticence. ‘I’d sooner break her heart 
than see her married to a Zionist !’ 

This time it was the sculptor’s turn to gasp. 

‘To a what?’ he cried. 

‘To a Zionist. You don’t mean to deny you're a 


Zionist ?’ said Sir Asher, sternly. 
K 


130 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


Barstein gazed at him in silence. 

‘Come, come,’ said Sir Asher. ‘You don’t suppose 
I don’t read the Jewish papers? I know all about 
your goings-on.’ 

The artist found his tongue. ‘But — but,’ he stam- 
mered, ‘you yearn for Zion too.’ 

‘Naturally. But I don’t presume to force the hand 
of Providence.’ 

‘How can any of us force Providence to do anything 
it doesn’t want to? Surely it is through human agency 
that Providence always works. God helps those who 
help themselves.’ 

‘Spare me your blasphemies. Perhaps you think 
you are the Messiah.’ 

‘I can be an atom of Him. The whole Jewish 
people is its own Messiah — God working through 
it.’ 

‘Take care, young man; you'll be talking Trinity 
next. And with these heathen notions you expect to 
marry my daughter! You must excuse me if I wish 
to hear no further.’ His hand began to wander towards 
the row of electric bells on his desk. 

‘Then how do you suppose we shall ever get to Pales- 
tine?’ inquired the irritated artist. 

Sir Asher raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘In God’s 
good time,’ he said. 

‘And when will that be?’ 

‘When we are either too good or too bad for our 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 131 


present sphere. To-day we are too neutral. Besides, 
there will be signs enough.’ 

“What signs?’ 

“Read your Bible. Mount Zion will be split by an 
earthquake, as the prophet ; 





Barstein interrupted him with an impatient gesture. 
‘But why can’t we go to Jerusalem and wait for the 
earthquake there?’ he asked. 

‘Because we have a mission to the nations. We must 
live dispersed. We have to preach the unity of God.’ 

‘I have never heard you preach it. You lowered 
your voice when you denounced the Trinity to me, lest 
the Christians should hear.’ 

‘We have to preach silently, by our example. Merely 
by keeping our own religion we convert the world.’ 

“But who keeps it? Dispersion among. Sunday- 
keeping peoples makes our very Sabbath an economic 
impossibility.’ 

‘I have not found it so,’ said Sir Asher, crushingly. 
‘Indeed, the growth of the Saturday half-holiday since 
my young days is a remarkable instance of Juda- 
izing.’ 

‘So we have to remain dispersed to promote the 
week-end holiday ?’ 

“To teach international truth,’ Sir Asher corrected 
sharply; ‘not narrow tribalism.’ 

‘But we don’t remain dispersed. Five millions are 
herded in the Russian Pale to begin with.’ 


1382 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


“The Providence of God has long been scattering 
them to New York.’ 

‘Yes, four hundred thousand in one square mile. 
A pretty scattering !’ 

Sir Asher flushed angrily. ‘But they go to the 
Argentine too. I heard of a colony even in Para- 
guay.’ 

‘Where they are preaching the Unity to the Indians.’ 

‘I do not discuss religion with a mocker. We are 
in exile by God’s decree — we must suffer.’ 

‘Suffer!’ The artist’s glance wandered cynically 
round the snug solidities of Sir Asher’s exile, but he 
forbore to be personal. ‘Then if we must suffer, why 
did you subscribe so much to the fund for the Russian 
Jews?’ 

Sir Asher looked mollified at Barstein’s acquaintance 
with his generosity. ‘That I might suffer with them,’ 
he replied, with a touch of humour. 

‘Then you are a Jewish patriot,’ retorted Bar- 
stein. 

The bluff British face grew clouded again. 

‘Heaven forbid. I only know of British patriots. 
You talk treason to your country, young man.’ 

“Treason —I!’ The young man laughed bitterly. 

‘It is you Zionists that will undermine all the rights 
we have so painfully won in the West.’ 

‘Oh, then you’re not really a British patriot,’ Bar- 
stein began. 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 133 


‘I will beg you to remember, sir, that I equipped a 
corps of volunteers for the Transvaal.’ 

‘I dare say. But a corps of volunteers for Zion — 
that is blasphemy, narrow tribalism.’ 

‘Zion’s soil is holy; we want no volunteers there: 
we want saints and teachers. And what would your 
volunteers do in Zion? Fight the Sultan with his 
million soldiers? ‘They couldn’t even live in Palestine 
as men of peace. There is neither coal nor iron — 
hence no manufactures. Agriculture? It’s largely 
stones and swamps. Not to mention it’s too hot for 
Jews to work in the fields. They’d all starve. You’ve 
no right to play recklessly with human lives. Besides, 
even if Palestine were as fertile as England, Jews could 
never live off one another. And think how they’d 
quarrel !’ 

Sir Asher ended almost good-humouredly. His array 
of arguments seemed to him a row of steam-hammers. 

“We can live off one another as easily as any other 
people. As for quarrelling, weren’t you in Parliament? 
Party government makes quarrel the very basis of the 
Constitution.’ 

Sir Asher flushed again. A long lifetime of laying 
down the law had ill prepared him for repartee. 

‘A pretty mess we should make of Government!’ 
he sneered. 

“Why? We have given Ministers to every Cabinet 
in the world.’ 


134 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


“Yes — we’re all right as long as we’re under others.’ 
Sir Asher was recovering his serenity. 

‘All right so long as we’re under others!’ gasped 
the artist. ‘Do you realize what you’re saying, Sir 
Asher? ‘The Boers against whom you equipped volun- 
teers fought frenziedly for three years not to be under 
others! And we—the thought of Jewish autonomy 
makes us foam at the mouth. The idea of indepen- 
dence makes us turn in the graves we callour fatherlands.’ 

Sir Asher dismissed the subject with a Podsnappian 
wave of the hand. ‘This is alla waste of breath. For- 
tunately the acquisition of Palestine is impossible.’ 

‘Then why do you pray for it — “speedily and in our 
days’??? 

Sir Asher glared at the bold questioner. 

‘That seems a worse waste of breath,’ added Barstein, 
drily. 

‘I said you were a mocker,’ said Sir Asher, severely. 
‘It is a Divine event I pray for —not the creation of a 
Ghetto.’ 

‘A Ghetto!’ Barstein groaned in sheer hopeless- 
ness. ‘Yes, you’re an anti-Semite, too—like your 
daughter, like your son, like all of us. We’re all anti- 
Semites.’ 

‘IT an anti-Semite! Ho! ho! ho!’ Sir Asher’s 
anger broke down in sheer amusement. ‘I have made 
every allowance for your excitement,’ he said, recover- 
ing his magisterial note. ‘I was once in love myself. 


THE JEWISH TRINITY 135 


But when it comes to calling me an anti-Semite, it is 
obvious you are not in a fit state to continue this inter- 
view. Indeed, I no longer wonder that you think 
yourself the Messiah.’ 

‘Even if I do, our tradition only makes the Messiah 
a man; somebody some day will have to win your 
belief. But what I said was that God acts through 
man.’ 

‘Ah, yes,’ said Sir Asher, good-humouredly. ‘Three 
in-one and one-in-three.’ 

‘And why not?’ said Barstein, with a flash of angry 
intuition. ‘Aren’t you a trinity yourself?’ 

‘Me?’ Sir Asher was now quite sure of the sculp- 
tor’s derangement. 

“Yes —the Briton, the Jew, and the anti-Semite — 
three-in-one and one-in-three..’ 

Sir Asher touched one of the electric bells with a 
jerk. He was quite alarmed. 

Barstein turned white with rage at his dismissal. 
Never would he marry into these triune tribes. ‘And 
it’s the same in every land where we’re emancipated, 
as it is called,’ he went on furiously. ‘The Jew’s a 
patriot everywhere, and a Jew everywhere and an 
anti-Semite everywhere. Passionate Hungarians, and 
true-born Italians, eagle-waving Americans, and loyal 
Frenchmen, imperial Germans, and double Dutchmen, 
we are dispersed to preach the Unity, and what we illus- 
trate is the Jewish trinity. A delicious irony! ‘Three- 


136 THE JEWISH TRINITY 


in-one and one-in-three.’ He laughed; to Sir Asher 
his laugh sounded maniacal. The old gentleman was 
relieved to see his stalwart doorkeeper enter. 

Barstein turned scornfully on his heel. ‘Neither 
confounding the persons nor dividing the substance,’ 
he ended grimly. 





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NMS UN ha we Ai 
De en AMT ei any ale oi AT 


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SABBATH QUESTION IN 


SUDMINSTER 


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fam SABBATH QUESTION “IN 
SUDMINSTER 


I 


THERE was a storm in Sudminster, not on the waters 
which washed its leading Jews their living, but in the 
breasts of these same marine storekeepers. For a 
competitor had appeared in their hive of industry — an 
alien immigrant, without roots or even relatives at 
Sudminster. And Simeon Samuels was equipped not 
only with capital and enterprise — the showy plate- 
glass front of his shop revealed an enticing miscellany 
— but with blasphemy and bravado. For he did not 
close on Friday eve, and he opened on Saturday morn- 
ing as usual. 

The rumour did not get round all Sudminster the 
first Friday night, but by the Sabbath morning the 
synagogue hummed with it. It set a clammy horror 
in the breasts of the congregants, distracted their 
prayers, gave an unreal tone to the cantor’s roulades, 
brought a tremor of insecurity into the very founda- 
tions of their universe. For nearly three generations a 
congregation had been established in Sudminster — 
like every Jewish congregation, a camp in not friendly 

139 


1440 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


country — struggling at every sacrifice to keep the Holy 
Day despite the supplementary burden of Sunday 
closing, and the God of their fathers had not left un- 
performed His part of the contract. For ‘the harvests’ 
of profit were abundant, and if ‘the latter and the 
former rain’ of their unchanging supplication were mere 
dried metaphors to a people divorced from Palestine 
and the soil for eighteen centuries, the wine and the 
oil came in casks, and the corn in cakes. The poor 
were few and well provided for; even the mortgage on 
the synagogue was paid off. And now this Epicurean 
was come to trouble the snug security, to break the 
long chain of Sabbath observance which stretched from 
Sinai. What wonder if some of the worshippers, 
especially such as had passed his blatant shop-window 
on their return from synagogue on Friday evening, 
were literally surprised that the earth had not opened 
beneath him as it had opened beneath Korah. 

‘Even the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath 
was stoned to death,’ whispered the squat Solomon 
Barzinsky, to the lanky Ephraim Mendel, marine- 
dealers both. 

‘Alas! that would not be permitted in this heathen 
country,’ sighed Ephraim Mendel, hitching his praying- 
shawl more over his left shoulder. ‘But at least his 
windows should be stoned.’ 

Solomon Barzinsky smiled, with a gleeful imagining 
of the shattering of the shameless plate-glass. ‘Yes, 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 141 


and that wax-dummy of a sailor should be hung as an 
atonement for his — Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of 
Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.’ The last 
phrase Solomon suddenly shouted in Hebrew, in antiph- 
onal response to the cantor, and he rose three times on his 
toes, bowing his head piously. ‘No wonder he can offer 
gold lace for the price of silver,’ he concluded bitterly. 

‘He sells shoddy new reach-me-downs as pawned old 
clo,’ complained Lazarus Levy, who had taken over 
S. Cohn’s business, together with his daughter Deborah, 
‘and he charges the Sudminster donkey-heads more 
than the price we ask for ’em as new.’ 

Talk of the devil ! At this point Simeon Sam- 
uels stalked into the synagogue, late but serene. 

Had the real horned Asmodeus walked in, the agita- 
tion could not have been greater. ‘The first appearance 
in synagogue of a new settler was an event in itself; 
but that this Sabbath-breaker should appear at all was 
startling to a primitive community. Escorted by the 
obsequious and unruffled beadle to the seat he seemed 
already to have engaged — that high-priced seat facing 
the presidential pew that had remained vacant since 
the death of Tevele the pawnbroker — Simeon Samuels 
wrapped himself reverently in his praying-shawl, and 
became absorbed in the service. His glossy high hat 
bespoke an immaculate orthodoxy, his long black 
beard had a Rabbinic religiousness, his devotion was 
a rebuke to his gossiping neighbours. 





142 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


A wave of uneasiness passed over the synagogue. 
Had he been the victim of a jealous libel? Even those 
whose own eyes had seen him behind his counter when 
he should have been consecrating the Sabbath-wine at 
his supper-table, wondered if they had been the dupe of 
some hallucination. 

When, in accordance with hospitable etiquette, the 
new-comer was summoned canorously to the reading 
of the Law, — ‘Shall stand Simeon, the son of Nehe- 
miah,’ — and he arose and solemnly mounted the central 
platform, his familiarity with the due obeisances and 
osculations and benedictions seemed a withering reply 
to the libel. When he descended, and the Parnass 
proffered his presidential hand in pious congratulation 
upon the holy privilege, all the congregants who found 
themselves upon his line of return shot forth their 
arms with remorseful eagerness, and thus was Simeon 
Samuels switched on to the brotherhood of Sudmin- 
sterian Israel. Yet as his now trusting co-religionists 
passed his shop on their homeward walk — and many 
a pair of legs went considerably out of its way to do 
so — their eyes became again saucers of horror and 
amaze. The broad plate-glass glittered nakedly, 
unveiled by a single shutter; the waxen dummy of the 
sailor hitched devil-may-care breeches; the gold lace, 
ticketed with layers of erased figures, boasted brazenly 
of its cheapness; the procession of customers came 
and went, and the pavement, splashed with sun- 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 148 


shine, remained imperturbably, perturbingly acqui- 
escent. 


II 


On the Sunday night Solomon Barzinskyand Ephraim 
Mendel in pious black velvet caps, and their stout 
spouses in gold chains and diamond earrings, found 
themselves playing solo whist in the Parnass’s parlour, 
and their religious grievance weighed upon the game. 
The Parnass, though at heart as outraged as they by: 
the new departure, felt it always incumbent upon 
him to display his presidential impartiality and his 
dry humour. His authority, mainly based on his 
being the only retired shopkeeper in the community, 
was greatly strengthened by his slow manner of taking 
snuff at a crisis. ‘My dear Mendel,’ observed the 
wizened senior, flicking away the spilth with a blue 
handkerchief, ‘Simeon Samuels has already paid his 
annual subscription — and you haven’t !’ 

‘My money is good,’ Mendel replied, reddening. 

‘No wonder he can pay so quickly!’ said Solomon 
Barzinsky, shuffling the cards savagely. 

‘How he makes his money is not the question,’ said 
the Parnass weightily. ‘He has paid it, and therefore 
if I were to expel him, as you suggest, he might go to 
Law.’ 

‘Law!’ retorted Solomon. ‘Can’t we prove he has 
broken the Law of Moses?’ 


144 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘And suppose?’ said the Parnass, picking up his 
cards placidly. ‘Do we want to wash our dirty 
Talysim (praying-shawls) in public?’ 

‘He is right, Solomon,’ said Mrs. Barzinsky. ‘We 
should become a laughing-stock among the heathen.’ 

‘I don’t believe he’d drag us to the Christian courts,’ 
the little man persisted. ‘I pass.’ 

The rubber continued cheerlessly. ‘A man who 
keeps his shop open on Sabbath is capable of anything,’ 
said the lanky Mendel, gloomily sweeping in his win- 
nings. 

The Parnass took snuff judicially. ‘Besides, he 
may have a Christian partner who keeps all the Satur- 
day profits,’ he suggested. 

‘That would be just as forbidden,’ said Barzinsky, 
as he dealt the cards. 

‘But your cousin David,’ his wife reminded him, 
‘sells his groceries to a Christian at Passover.’ 

‘That is permitted. It would not be reasonable to 
destroy hundreds of pounds of leaven.. But Sabbath 
partnerships are not permitted.’ 

‘Perhaps the question has never been raised,’ said 
the Parnass. 

‘I am enough of a Lamdan (pundit) to answer it,’ 
retorted Barzinsky. 

‘I prefer going to a specialist,’ rejoined the Parnass. 

Barzinsky threw down his cards. ‘You can go to 
the devil!’ he cried. 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 145 


‘For shame, Solomon!’ said his wife. ‘Don’t dis- 
turb the game.’ 

“To Gehenna with the game! The shame is on a 
Parnass to talk like an Epikouros (Epicurean).’ 

The Parnass blew his nose elaborately. ‘It stands 
in the Talmud: ‘For vain swearing noxious beasts 
came into the world,” and if , 

‘It stands in the Psalmist,’ Barzinsky interrupted: 
‘““The Law of Thy mouth is better to me than thou- 
sands of gold and silver.””’ 

‘It stands in the Perek,’ the Parnass rejoined se- 
verely, ‘that the wise man does not break in upon the 
speech of his fellow.’ 

‘It stands in the Shulchan Aruch,’ Barzinsky shrieked, 
‘that for the sanctification of the Sabbath ——’ 

‘It stands in the Talmud,’ interposed Mendel, with 
unwonted animation in his long figure, ‘that one must 
not even offer a nut to allure customers. From light 
to heavy, therefore, it may be deduced that ——’ 

A still small voice broke in upon the storm. ‘But 
Simeon Samuels hasn’t a Christian partner,’ said Mrs. 
Mendel. 

There was an embarrassed pause. 

‘He has only his wife to help him,’ she went on. 
‘I know, because I went to the shop Friday morning 
on pretence of asking for a cuckoo-clock.’ 





‘But a marine-dealer doesn’t sell clocks,’ put in the 
Parnass’s wife, timidly. It was her first contribution to 
L 


146 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


the conversation, for she was overpowered by her hus- 
band’s greatness.’ 

‘Don’t be silly, Hannah,’ said the Parnass. ‘That 
was just why Mrs. Mendel asked for it.’ 

‘Yes, but unfortunately Simeon Samuels did have 
one,’ Mrs. Mendel confessed; ‘and I couldn’t get out 
of buying it.’ 

There was a general laugh. 

‘Cut-throat competition, I call it,’ snarled Solomon 
Barzinsky, recovering from his merriment. 

‘But you don’t sell clocks,’ said the Parnass. 

‘That’s just it; he gets hold of our customers on pre- 
tence of selling them something else. The Talmudical 
prohibition cited by Mendel applies to that, too.’ 

‘So I wasn’t so silly,’ put in the Parnass’s wife, feel- 
ing vaguely vindicated. 

‘Well, you saw his wife,’ said the Parnass to Men- 
del’s wife, disregarding his own. ‘More than I’ve 
done, for she wasn’t in, synagogue. Perhaps she is 
the Christian partner.’ His suggestion brought a new 
and holier horror over the card-table. 

‘No, no,’ replied Mrs. Mendel, reassuringly. ‘I 
caught sight of her frying fish in the kitchen.’ 

This proof of her Jewishness passed unquestioned, 
and the new-born horror subsided. 

‘But in spite of the fish,’ said Mr. Mendel, ‘she 
served in the shop while he was at synagogue.’ 

‘Yes,’ hissed Barzinsky; ‘and in spite of the syna- 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 147 


gogue he served in the shop. A greater mockery was 
never known !’ 

‘Not at all, not at all,’ said the Parnass, judicially. 
‘If a man breaks one commandment, that’s no reason 
he should break two.’ 

‘But he does break two,’ Solomon thundered, smit- 
ing the green cloth with his fist; ‘for he steals my 
custom by opening when I’m closed.’ 

“Take care — you will break my plates,’ said the 
Parnass. ‘Take a sandwich.’ 

‘Thank you — you’ve taken away my appetite.’ 

‘I’m sorry — but the sandwiches would have done 
the same. I really can’t expel a respectable seat- 
holder before I know that he is truly a sinner in Israel. 
As it is written, ‘‘Thou shalt inquire and make search 
and ask diligently. 
by way of a send-off. Every dog is allowed one bite ’ 

‘At that rate, it would be permitted to eat a ham- 
sandwich — just for once,’ said Solomon, scathingly. 


””? He may have only opened this once 


‘Don’t say I called you a dog,’ the Parnass laughed. 

‘A mezaire!’ announced the hostess, hurriedly. 
‘After all, it’s the Almighty’s business, not ours.’ 

‘No, it’s our business,’ Solomon insisted. 

‘Yes,’ agreed the Parnass drily; ‘it 7s your business.’ 


III 


The week went by, with no lull in the storm, though 
the plate-glass window was unshaken by the gusts. 


148 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


It maintained its flaunting seductiveness, assisted, 
people observed, by Simeon Samuels’ habit of loung- 
ing at his shop-door and sucking in the hesitating 
spectator. And it did not shutter itself on the Sabbath 
that succeeded. 

The horror was tinged with consternation. The 
strange apathy of the pavement and the sky, the re- 
missness of the volcanic fires and the celestial thunder- 
bolts in face of this staring profanity, lent the cosmos 
an air almost of accessory after the fact. Never had 
the congregation seen Heaven so openly defied, and 
the consequences did not at all correspond with their 
deep if undefined forebodings. It is true a horse and 
carriage dashed into Peleg, the pawnbroker’s, window 
down the street, frightened, Peleg maintained, by the 
oilskins fluttering outside Simeon Samuels’ shop; but 
as the suffering was entirely limited to the nerves of 
Mrs. Peleg, who was pious, and to the innocent nose 
of the horse, this catastrophe was not quite what was 
expected. Solomon Barzinsky made himself the spokes- 
man of the general dissatisfaction, and his remarks to 
the minister after the Sabbath service almost insinuated 
that the reverend gentleman had connived at a breach 
of contract. 

The Rev. Elkan Gabriel quoted Scripture. ‘The 
Lord is merciful and long-suffering, and will not at 
once awaken all His wrath.’ | 

‘But meantime the sinner makes a pretty penny!’ 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 149 


quoth Solomon, unappeased. ‘Saturday is pay-day, 
and the heathen haven’t patience to wait till the three 
stars are out and our shops can open. It is your duty, 
Mr. Gabriel, to put a stop to this profanation.’ 

The minister hummed and ha’d. He was middle- 
aged, and shabby, with a German diploma and accent 
and a large family. It was the first time in his five years 
of office that one of his congregants had suggested such 
authoritativeness on his part. Elected by their vote, 
he was treated as their servant, his duties rigidly pre- 
scribed, his religious ideas curbed and corrected by 
theirs. What wonder if he could not suddenly rise 
to dictatorship? Even at home Mrs. Gabriel was a 
congregation in herself. But as the week went by he 
found Barzinsky was not the only man to egg him 
on to prophetic denunciation; the congregation at 
large treated him as responsible for the scandal, and 
if the seven marine-dealers were the bitterest, the 
pawnbrokers and the linen-drapers were none the less 
outraged. 

‘It is a profanation of the Name,’ they said unani- 
mously, ‘and such a bad example to our poor!’ 

‘He would not listen to me,’ the poor minister would 
protest. ‘You had much better talk to him your- 
self.’ 

‘Me!’ the button-holer would ejaculate. ‘I would 
not lower myself. He’d think I was jealous of his 
SUCCESS.” 


150 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


Simeon Samuels seemed, indeed, a formidable person 
to tackle. Bland and aloof, he pursued his own affairs, 
meeting the congregation only in synagogue, and then 
more bland and aloof than ever. 

At last the Minister received a presidential command 
to preach upon the subject forthwith. 

‘But there’s no text suitable just yet,’ he pleaded. 
‘We are still in Genesis.’ 

‘Bah!’ replied the Parnass, impatiently, ‘any text 
can be twisted to point any moral. You must preach 
next Sabbath.’ 

‘But we are reading the Sedrah (weekly portion) 
about Joseph. How are you going to work Sabbath- 
keeping into that?’ 

‘It is not my profession. I am a mere man-of-the- 
earth. But what’s the use of a preacher if he can’t 
make any text mean something else?’ 

‘Well, of course, every text usually does,’ said the 
preacher, defensively. ‘There is the hidden meaning 
and the plain meaning. But Joseph is merely his- 
torical narrative. The Sabbath, although mentioned in 
Genesis, chapter two, wasn’t even formally ordained yet.’ 

‘And what about Potiphar’s wife ?’ 

‘That’s the Seventh Commandment, not the Fourth.’ 

‘Thank you for the information. Do you mean to 
say you can’t jump from one Commandment to an- 
other ?’ 

‘Oh, well—’ The minister meditated. 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 181 


IV 


‘And Joseph was a goodly person, and well favoured. 
And it came to pass that his master’s wife cast her 
eyes upon Joseph... .’ 

The congregation looked startled. Really this was 
not a text which they wished their pastor to enlarge 
upon. ‘There were things in the Bible that should be 
left in the obscurity of the Hebrew, especially when 
one’s womenkind were within earshot. Uneasily their 
eyes lifted towards the bonnets behind the balcony- 
grating. 

‘But Joseph refused.’ 

Solomon Barzinsky coughed. Peleg the pawn- 
broker blew his nose like a protesting trumpet. The 
congregation’s eyes returned from the balcony and 
converged upon the Parnass. He was taking snuff 
as usual. 

‘My brethren,’ began the preacher, impressively, 
‘temptation comes to us all ——’ 

A sniff of indignant repudiation proceeded from 
many nostrils. A blush overspread many cheeks. 

‘But not always in the shape it came to Joseph.. 
In this congregation, where, by the blessing of the 
Almighty, we are free from almost every form of wrong- 
doing, there is yet one temptation which has power to 
touch us — the temptation of unholy profit, the seduc- 
tion of Sabbath-breaking.’ 


152 THE SABBATH QUESTION [IN SUDMINSTER 


A great sigh of dual relief went up to the balcony, and 
Simeon Samuels became now the focus of every eye. 
His face was turned towards the preacher, wearing 
its wonted synagogue expression of reverential dig- 
nity. 

‘Oh, my brethren, that it could always be said of 
us: ‘‘And Joseph refused”’ !’ 

A genial warmth came back to every breast. Ah, 
now the cosmos was righting itself: Heaven was speak- 
ing through the mouth of its minister. 

The Rev. Elkan Gabriel expanded under this warmth 
which radiated back to him. His stature grew, his 
eloquence poured forth, polysyllabic. As he ended, 
the congregation burst into a heartfelt ‘Yosher Koach’ 
(‘May thy strength increase !’). 

The minister descended the Ark-steps, and stalked 
back solemnly to his seat. As he passed Simeon 
Samuels, that gentleman whipped out his hand and 
grasped the man of God’s, and his neighbours testified 
that there was a look of contrite exaltation upon his 
goodly features. 


V 


The Sabbath came round again, but, alas! it brought 
no balm to the congregation; rather, was it a day of 
unrest. The plate-glass window still flashed in iniqui- 
tous effrontery; still the ungodly proprietor allured the 
stream of custom. 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 1658 


‘He does not even refuse to take money,’ Solomon 
Barzinsky exclaimed to Peleg the pawnbroker, as they 
passed the blasphemous window on their way from 
the Friday-evening service. 

“Why, what would be the good of ee open if 
you didn’t take money?’ naively inquired Peleg. 

‘“Behemah (animal) !’ replied Solomon, impatiently. 
‘Don’t you know it’s forbidden to touch money on the 
Sabbath ?’ 

‘Of course, I know that. But if you open your 
shop 

‘All the same, you might compromise. You might 
give the customers the things they need, as it is writ- 
ten, “Open thy hand to the needy!’ but they could 
pay on Saturday night.’ 

‘And if they didn’t pay? If they drank their money 
away?’ said the pawnbroker. 

‘True, but why couldn’t they pay in advance?’ 

‘How in advance?’ 

“They could deposit a sum of money with you, and 
draw against it.’ } 

‘Not with me!’ Peleg made a grimace. ‘All very 
well for your line, but in mine I should have to deposit 
a sum of money with them. I don’t suppose they’d 
bring their pledges on Friday night, and wait till Satur- 
day night for the money. Besides, how could one 
remember? One would have to profane the Sabbath 





by writing !’ 


1544 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


“Write! Heaven forbid!’ ejaculated Solomon Bar- 
zinsky. ‘But you could have a system of marking 
the amounts against their names in your register. A 
pin could be stuck in to represent a pound, or a stamp 
stuck on to indicate a crown. ‘There are lots of ways. 
One could always give one’s self a device,’ he concluded 
in Yiddish. 

‘But it is written in Job, “He disappointeth the de- 
vices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform 
their enterprise.”” Have a little of Job’s patience, and 
trust the Lord to confound the sinner. We shall yet 
see Simeon Samuels in the Bankruptcy Court.’ 

‘I hope not, the rogue! I’d lke to see him 
ruined !’ 

‘That’s what I mean. Leave him to the Lord.’ 

‘The Lord is too long-suffering,’ said Solomon. ‘Ah, 
our Parnass has caught us up. Good Shabbos (Sab- 
bath), Parnass. This is a fine scandal for a God-fear- 
ing congregation. I congratulate you.’ 

‘Is he open again?’ gasped the Parnass, hurled from 
his judicial calm. 

‘Is my eye open?’ witheringly retorted Barzinsky. 
‘A fat lot of good your preacher does.’ 

‘It was you who would elect him instead of Rochin- 
sky,’ the Parnass reminded him. Barzinsky was 
taken aback. 

‘Well, we don’t want foreigners, do we?’ he mur- 
mured. 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 155 


‘And you caught an Englishman in Simeon Samuels,’ 
chuckled the Parnass, in whose breast the defeat of 
his candidate had never ceased to rankle. 

‘Not he. An Englishman plays fair,’ retorted Bar- 
zinsky. He seriously considered himself a_ Briton, 
regarding his naturalization papers as retrospective. 
‘We are just passing the Reverend Gabriel’s house,’ he 
went on. ‘Let us wait a moment; he’ll come along, 
and we'll give him a piece of our minds.’ 

‘I can’t keep my family waiting for Kiddush’ aay 
service), said Peleg. 

‘Come home, father; I’m hungry,’ put in Peleg 
junior, who with various Barzinsky boys had been 
trailing in the parental wake. 

‘Silence, impudent face!’ snapped Barzinsky. ‘If 
I was your father Ah, here comes the minister. 
Good Shabbos (Sabbath), Mr. Gabriel. I congratulate 
you on the effect of your last sermon.’ 

An exultant light leapt into the minister’s eye. ‘Is 
he shut?’ 

‘Is your mouth shut?’ Solomon replied scathingly. 
‘I doubt if he’ll even come to Shool (synagogue), to- 
morrow.’ 

The ministerial mouth remained open in a fishy gasp, 
but no words came from it. 

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to use stronger language, 
Mr. Gabriel,’ said the Parnass, soothingly. 

‘But if he is not there to hear it.’ 





156 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘Oh, don’t listen to Barzinsky. He’ll be there right 
enough. Just give it to him hot!’ 

‘Your sermon was too general,’ added Peleg, who 
had lingered, though his son had not. ‘You might 
have meant any of us.’ 

‘But we must not shame our brother in public,’ 
urged the minister. ‘It is written in the Talmud that 
he who does so has no share in the world to come.’ 

‘Well, you shamed us all,’ retorted Barzinsky. ‘A 
stranger would imagine we were a congregation of 
Sabbath-breakers.’ 

‘But there wasn’t any stranger,’ said the minister. 

‘There was Simeon Samuels,’ the Parnass reminded 
him. ‘Perhaps your sermon against Sabbath-breaking 
made him fancy he was just one of a crowd, and that 
you have therefore only hardened him ——’ 

‘But you told me to preach against Sabbath-breaking,’ 
said the poor minister. 

‘Against the Sabbath-breaker,’ corrected the Par- 
nass. 

‘You didn’t single him out,’ added Barzinsky; ‘you 
didn’t even make it clear that Joseph wasn’t myself.’ 

‘I said Joseph was a goodly person and well-favoured,’ 
retorted the goaded minister. 

The Parnass took snuff, and his sneeze sounded like 
a guffaw. 

‘Well, well,’ he said more kindly, ‘you must try again 
to-morrow.’ 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 157 


‘I didn’t undertake to preach every Saturday,’ grum- 
bled the minister, growing bolder. 

‘As long as Simeon Samuels keeps open, you can’t 
shut,’ said Solomon, angrily. 

‘It’s a duel between you,’ added Peleg. 

‘And Simeon actually comes into to-morrow’s Sed- 
rah (portion),’ Barzinsky remembered exultantly. 
‘“And took from them Simeon, and bound him before 
their eyes.”” There’s your very text. You'll pick out 
Simeon from among us, and bind him to keep the 
Sabbath.’ 

‘Or you can say Satan has taken Simeon and bound 
him,’ added the Parnass. ‘You have a choice — your- 
self or Satan.’ 

‘Perhaps you had better preach yourself, then,’ said 
the minister, sullenly. ‘I still can’t see what that text 
has to do with Sabbath-breaking.’ 

‘It has as much to do with Sabbath-breaking as 
Potiphar’s wife,’ shrieked Solomon Barzinsky. 


VI 


*** And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye 
bereaved. Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye 
will take Benjamin.’’’ 

As the word ‘Simeon’ came hissing from the preacher’s 
lips, a veritable thrill passed through the synagogue. 
Even Simeon Samuels seemed shaken, for he readjusted 
his praying-shawl with a nervous movement. 


158 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘My brethren, these words of Israel, the great fore- 
father of our tribes, are still ringing in our ears. ‘To-day 
more than ever is Israel crying. Joseph is not — our 
Holy Land is lost. Simeon is not — our Holy Temple 
is razed to the ground. One thing only is left us — one 
blessing with which the almighty father has blessed 
us — our Holy Sabbath. And ye will take Benjamin.’ 
The pathos of his accents melted every heart. ‘Tears 
rolled down many a feminine cheek. Simeon Samuels 
was seen to blow his nose softly. 

Thus successfully launched, the Rev. Elkan Gabriel 
proceeded to draw a tender picture of the love between 
Israel and his Benjamin, Sabbath — the one consola- 
tion of his exile, and he skilfully worked in the sub- 
sequent verse: ‘If mischief befall him by the way on 
which ye go, then shall ye bring down my grey hairs 
with sorrow to the grave.’ Yes, it would be the de- 
struction of Israel, he urged, if the Sabbath decayed. 
Woe to those sons of Israel who dared to endanger 
Benjamin. ‘From Reuben and Simeon down to Gad 
and Asher, his life shall be required at their hands.’ Oh, 
it was a red-hot-cannon-ball-firing sermon, and Solomon 
Barzinsky could not resist leaning across and whisper- 
ing to the Parnass: ‘Wasn’t I right in refusing to vote 
for Rochinsky?’ This reminder of his candidate’s 
defeat was wormwood to the Parnass, spoiling all his 
satisfaction in the sermon. He rebuked the talker 
with a noisy ‘Shaa’ (silence). 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 159 


The congregation shrank delicately from looking at 
the sinner; it would be too painful to watch his wriggles. 
His neighbours stared pointedly every other way. 
Thus, the only record of his deportment under fire 
came from Yankele, the poor glazier’s boy, who said 
that he kept looking from face to face, as if to mark the 
effect on the congregation, stroking his beard placidly 
the while. But as to his behaviour after the guns 
were still, there was no dubiety, for everybody saw him 
approach the Parnass in the exodus from synagogue, 
and many heard him say in hearty accents: ‘I really 
must congratulate you, Mr. President, on your selec- 
tion of your minister.’ 


VII 


‘You touched his heart so,’ shrieked Solomon Bar- 
zinsky an hour later to the Reverend Elkan Gabriel 
‘that he went straight from Shool (synagogue) to his 
shop.’ Solomon had rushed out the first thing after 
breakfast, risking the digestion of his Sabbath fish, to 
call upon the unsuccessful minister. 

‘That is not my fault,’ said the preacher, crest- 
fallen. 

‘Yes, it is —if you had only stuck to my text. But 
no! You must set yourself up over all our heads.’ 

“You told me to get in Simeon, and I obeyed.’ 

‘Yes, you got him in. But what did you call him? 
The Holy Temple! A fine thing, upon my soul!’ 


160 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘It was only an—an—analogy,’ stammered the poor 
minister. 

‘An apology! Oh, so you apologized to him, too! 
Better and better !’ 

‘No, no, I mean a comparison.’ 

‘A comparison! You never compared me to the 
Holy Temple. And I’m Solomon—Solomon who built 
it.’ 

‘Solomon was wise,’ murmured the minister. 

‘Oh, and I’m silly. If I were you, Mr. Gabriel, I’d 
remember my place and who I owed it to. But for 
me, Rochinsky would have stood in your shoes ——’ 

‘Rochinsky is lucky.’ 

‘Oh, indeed! So this is your gratitude. Very well. 
Either Simeon Samuels shuts up shop or you do. 
That’s final. Don’t forget you were only elected for 
three years.’ And the little man flung out. 

The Parnass, meeting his minister later in the street, 
took a similar view. 

‘You really must preach again next Sabbath,’ he 
said. ‘The congregation is terribly wrought up. There 
may even be a riot. If Simeon Samuels keeps open 
next Sabbath, I can’t answer that they won’t go and 
break his windows.’ 

‘Then they will break the Sabbath.’ 

‘Oh, they may wait till the Sabbath is out.’ 

‘They’ll be too busy opening their own shops.’ 

‘Don’t argue. You must preach his shop shut.’ 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 161 


‘Very well,’ said the Reverend Gabriel, sullenly. 

‘That’s right. A man with a family must rise to 
great occasions. Do you think I’d be where I am 
now if I hadn’t had the courage to buy a bankrupt 
stock that I didn’t see my way to paying for? It’s a 
fight between you and Simeon Samuels.’ 

‘May his name be blotted out!’ impatiently cried 
the minister in the Hebrew imprecation. 

‘No, no,’ replied the Parnass, smiling. ‘His name 
must not be blotted out — it must be mentioned, and — 
unmistakably.’ 

‘It is against the Talmud. To shame a man is 
equivalent to murder,’ the minister persisted. 

‘Yet it is written in Leviticus: “Thou shalt in any 
wiserebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.”’’ 
And the Parnass took a triumphant pinch. 


Vill 


‘Simeon and Levi are brethren . . . into their as- 
sembly be not thou united: in their self-will they digged 
down a wall.’ 

The Parnass applauded mentally. The text, from 
Jacob’s blessing, was ingeniously expurgated to meet 
the case. The wall, he perceived at once, was the 
Sabbath — the Jews’ one last protection against the 
outer world, the one last dyke against the waves of 
heathendom. Nor did his complacency diminish when 


his intuition proved correct, and the preacher thundered 
M 


162 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


against the self-will— ay, and the self-seeking — that 
undermined Israel’s last fortification. What did they 
seek under the wall? Did they think their delving 
spades would come upon a hidden store of gold, upon 
an ancient treasure-chest? Nay, it was a coffin they 
would strike —a coffin of dead bones and living ser- 
pents. , | 

A cold wave of horror traversed the synagogue; a 
little shriek came from the gallery. 

‘I don’t think I ever enjoyed a sermon so much,’ 
said the pawnbroker to the Parnass. 

‘Oh, he’s improving,’ said the Parnass, still swollen 
with satisfaction. 

But as that worthy elder emerged from the syna- 
gogue, placidly snuffing himself, he found an excited 
gentleman waiting him in the lobby. It was Lazarus 
Levy, whom his wife Deborah, daughter of S. Cohn 
(now of Highbury), was vainly endeavouring to pacify. 

‘Either that Reverend Gabriel goes, Mr. Parnass, or 
I resign my membership.’ 

‘What is it, Mr. Levy — what is the matter?’ 

‘Everybody knows I’ve been a good Jew all my life, 
and though Saturday is so good for the clothing busi- 
ness, I’ve striven with all my might to do my duty by 
the Almighty.’ 

‘Of course, of course; everybody knows that.’ 

‘And yet to-day I’m pointed out as a sinner in Israel; 
I’m coupled with that Simeon Samuels. Simeon and 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 163 


Levy are brothers in their iniquity — with their assembly 
be not united. A pretty libel, indeed !’ 

The Parnass’s complacency collapsed like an air-ball 
at a pin-prick. ‘Oh, nonsense, everybody knows he 
couldn’t mean you.’ 

‘I don’t know so much. There are always people 
ready to think one has just been discovered keeping a 
back-door open or something. I shouldn’t be at all 
surprised to get a letter from my father-in-law in 
London — you know how pious old Cohn is! As for 
Simeon, he kept looking at me as if I was his long-lost 
brother. Ah, there comes our precious minister... . 
Look here, Mr. Gabriel, V’ll have the law on you. 
Simeon’s no brother of mine ——’ 

The sudden appearance of Simeon through the other 
swing-door cut the speaker short. ‘Good Shabbos,’ 
said the shameless sinner. ‘Ah, Mr. Gabriel, that was 
a very fine sermon.’ He stroked his beard. ‘I quite 
agree with you. ‘To dig down a public wall is indefen- 
- sible. Nobody has the right to make more than a 
private hole in it, where it blocks out his own prospect. 
So please do not bracket me with Mr. Levy again. 
Good Shabbos!’ And, waving his hand pleasantly, 
he left them to their consternation. 


IX 


‘What an impudent face!’ said the Gabbai (treas- 
urer), who witnessed the episode. 


164. THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘And our minister says I’m that man’s brother!’ 
exclaimed Mr. Levy. 

‘Hush! Enough!’ said the Parnass, with a tactful 
inspiration. ‘You shall read the Haphiorah (prophetic 
section) next Shabbos.’ 

‘And Mr. Gabriel must explain he didn’t mean me,’ 
he stipulated, mollified by the magnificent Mitzvah 
(pious privilege). 

“You always try to drive a hard bargain,’ grumbled 
the Parnass. ‘That’s a question for Mr. Gabriel.’ 

The reverend gentleman had a happy thought. 
‘Wait till we come to the text: “Wherefore Levi hath 
no part nor inheritance with his brethren.’’’ 

‘You’re a gentleman, Mr. Gabriel,’ ejaculated S. 
Cohn’s son-in-law, clutching at his hand. 

‘And if he doesn’t close to-day after your splen- 
did sermon,’ added the Gabbai, ‘you must call and 
talk to him face to face.’ 

The minister made a wry face. ‘But that’s not in 
my duties.’ 

‘Pardon me, Mr. Gabriel,’ put in the Parnass, 
‘you have to call upon the afflicted and the bereaved. 
And Simeon Samuels is spiritually afflicted, and has 
lost his Sabbath.’ 

‘But he doesn’t want comforting.’ 

‘Well, Solomon Barzinsky does,’ said the Parnass. 
‘Go to him instead, then, for I’m past soothing him. 
Choose !’ 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 165 


‘T’ll go to Simeon Samuels,’ said the preacher, 
gloomily. 


x 


‘It is most kind of you to call,’ said Simeon Samuels 
as he wheeled the parlour armchair towards his reverend 
guest. ‘My wife will be so sorry to have missed you. 
We have both been looking forward so much to your 
visit.’ 

“You knew I was coming?’ said the minister, a whit 
startled. 

‘I naturally expected a pastoral visit sooner or 
later.’ 

‘I’m afraid it is later,’ murmured the minister, 
subsiding into the chair. 

‘Better late than never,’ cried Simeon Samuels 
heartily, as he produced a bottle from the sideboard. 
‘Do you take it with hot water ?’ 

‘Thank you—not at all. I am only staying a 
moment.’ 

‘Ah!’ He stroked his beard. ‘You are busy?’ 

‘Terribly busy,’ said the Rev. Elkan Gabriel. 

‘Even on Sunday ?’ 

‘Rather! It’s my day for secretarial work, as there’s 
no school.’ 

‘Poor Mr. Gabriel. I at least have Sunday to 
myself. But you have to work Saturday and Sunday 
too. It’s really too bad.’ 


166 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘Eh,’ said the minister blankly. 

‘Oh, of course I know you must work on the Sabbath.’ 

‘I work on—on Shabbos!’ The minister flushed 
to the temples. 

‘Oh, I’m not blaming you. One must live. In an 
ideal world of course you’d preach and pray and sing 
and recite the Law for nothing so that Heaven might 
perhaps overlook your hard labour, but as things are 
you must take your wages.’ 

The minister had risen agitatedly. ‘I earn my 
wages for the rest of my work — the Sabbath work I 
throw in,’ he said hotly. 

‘Oh come, Mr. Gabriel, that quibble is not worthy 
of you. But far be it from me to judge a fellow-man.’ 

‘Far be it indeed!’ The attempted turning of his 
sabre-point gave him vigour for the lunge. ‘You — 
you whose shop stands brazenly open every Satur- 
day !’ 

‘My dear Mr. Gabriel, I couldn’t break the Fourth 
Commandment.’ 

‘What !’ 

“Would you have me break the Fourth Command- 
ment ?’ 

‘I do not understand.’ 

‘And yet you hold a Rabbinic diploma, I am told. 
Does not the Fourth Commandment run: ‘‘Six days 
shalt thou labour and do all thy work’’? If I were 
to close on Saturday I should only be working five 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 167 


days a week, since in this heathen country Sunday 
closing is compulsory.’ 

‘But you don’t keep the other half of the Com- 
mandment,’ said the bewildered minister. ‘“‘ And 
on the seventh is the Sabbath.’’’ 

‘Yes, I do —after my six days the seventh is my 
Sabbath. I only sinned once, if you will have it so, 
the first time I shifted the Sabbath to Sunday, since 
when my Sabbath has arrived regularly on Sundays.’ 

‘But you did sin once!’ said the minister, catching 
at that straw. 

‘Granted, but as to get right again would now make 
a second sin, it seems more pious to let things be. Not 
that I really admit the first sin, for let me ask you, 
sir, which is nearer to the spirit of the Commandment — 
to work six days and keep a day of rest — merely chang- 
ing the day once in one’s whole lifetime — or to work 
five days and keep two days of rest ?’ 

The minister, taken aback, knew not how to meet this 
novel defence. He had come heavily armed against 
all the usual arguments as to the necessity of earning 
one’s bread. He was prepared to prove that even 
from a material point of view you really gained more 
in the long run, as it is written in the Conclusion-of- 
Sabbath Service: ‘Blessed shalt thou be in the city, 
and blessed shalt thou be in the field.’ 

Simeon Samuels pursued his advantage. 

‘My co-religionists in Sudminster seem to have put 


1468 Z7HE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


all the stress upon the resting half of the Command- 
ment, forgetting the working half of it. I do my 
best to meet their views — as you say, one should not 
dig down a wall — by attending their Sabbath service 
on a day most inconvenient to me. But no sacrifice 
is too great to achieve prayerful communion with one’s 
brethren.’ 

‘But if your views were to prevail there would be 
an end of Judaism!’ the minister burst forth. 

‘Then Heaven forbid they should prevail!’ said 
Simeon Samuels fervently. ‘It is your duty to put 
the opposition doctrine as strongly as possible from 
the pulpit.’ Then, as the minister rose in angry 
obfuscation, ‘You are sure you won’t have some 
whisky ?’ he added. 

‘No, I will take nothing from a house of sin. And 
if you show yourself next Sabbath I will preach at you 
again.’ 

‘So that is your idea of religion — to drive me from 
the synagogue. You are more likely to drive away 
the rest of the congregation, sick of always hearing 
the same sermon. As for me, you forget how I enjoy 
your eloquence, devoted though it is to the destruction 
of Judaism.’ 

‘Me!’ The minister became ungrammatical in his 
indignation. 

‘Yes, you. To mix up religion with the almanac. 
People who find that your Sabbath wall shuts them 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 169 


out of all public life and all professions, just go outside 
it altogether, and think themselves outside the gates 
of Judaism. If my father + peace be upon him — 
hadn’t had your narrow notions, I should have gone 
to the Bar instead of being condemned to shopkeeping.’ 

“You are a very good devil’s advocate now,’ retorted 
the minister. 

Simeon Samuels stroked his beard. ‘Thank you. 
And I congratulate your client.’ 

“You are an Epikouros (Epicurean), and I am wasting 
my time.’ 

‘And mine too.’ 

The minister strode into the shop. At the street- 
door he turned. 

“Then you persist in setting a bad example?’ 

‘A bad example! To whom? To your godly 
congregation? Considering every other shop in the 
town is open on Shabbos, one more or less can’t upset 
them.’ 

‘When it is the only Jewish shop! Are you aware, 
sir, that every other Jew in Sudminster closes rigorously 
on the Sabbath ?’ 

‘I ascertained that before I settled here,’ said Simeon 
Samuels quietly. 


XI 


The report of the pastor’s collapse produced an 
emergency meeting of the leading sheep. The mid-day 


170 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


dinner-hour was chosen as the slackest. A babble of 
suggestions filled the Parnass’s parlour. Solomon 
Barzinsky kept sternly repeating his Delenda est 
Carthago: ‘He must be expelled the congregation.’ 

‘He should be expelled from the town altogether, 
said Mendel. ‘As it is written: “‘And remove Satan 
from before and behind us.’’’ 

‘Since when have we owned Sudminster?’ sneered 
the Parnass. ‘You might as well talk of expelling 
the Mayor and the Corporation.’ 

‘I didn’t mean by Act of Parliament,’ said Mendel. 
‘We could make his life a torture.’ 

‘And meantime he makes yours a torture. No, no, 
the only way is to appeal to his soul —— 

‘May it be an atonement for us all!’ interrupted 
Peleg the pawnbroker. 

‘We must beg him not to destroy religion,’ repeated 
the Parnass. 

‘I thought Mr. Gabriel had done that,’ said the 
Gabbat. 

‘He is only a minister. He has no worldly tact.’ 

‘Then, why don’t you go?’ said Solomon Bar- 
zinsky. 

‘I have too much worldly tact. The President’s 
visit might seem like an appeal to authority. It would 
set up his bristles. Besides, there wouldn’t be me left 
to appeal to. The congregation must keep some trump 
up its sleeve. No, a mere plain member must go, a 


? 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 171 


simple brother in Israel, to talk to him, heart to heart. 
You, Barzinsky, are the very man.’ 

‘No, no, I’m not such a simple brother as all that. 
I’m in the same line, and he might take it for trade 
jealousy.’ 

‘Then Peleg must go.’ 

‘No, no, ’m not worthy to be the Sheliach Tzibbur !’ 
(envoy of the congregation). 

The Parnass reassured him as to his merits. ‘The 
congregation could not have a worthier envoy.’ 

‘But I can’t leave my business.’ 

‘You, with your fine grown-up daughters!’ cried 
Barzinsky. 

‘Don’t beshrew them — I will go at once.’ 

‘And these gentlemen must await you here,’ said 
the President, tapping his snuffbox incongruously at 
the ‘here,’ ‘in order to continue the sitting if you fail.’ 

‘I can’t wait more than a quarter of an hour,’ grum- 
bled various voices in various keys. 

Peleg departed nervously, upborne by the congre- 
gational esteem. He returned without even his own. 
Instead he carried a bulky barometer. 

‘You must buy this for the synagogue, gentlemen,’ 
he said. ‘It will do to hang in the lobby.’ 

The Parnass was the only one left in command of 
his breath. 

‘Buy a barometer!’ he gasped. 

‘Well, it isn’t any good to me,’ retorted Peleg angrily. 


172 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘Then why did you buy it?’ cried the Gabbaz. 

‘It was the cheapest article I could get off with.’ 

‘But you didn’t go to buy,’ said the Parnass. 

‘I know that—but you come into the shop — 
naturally he takes you for a customer —he looks so 
dignified; he strokes his beard— you can’t look a 
fool, you must ; 

‘Be one,’ snapped the Parnass. ‘And then you 
come to us to share the expenses !’ 

‘Well, what do I want with a barometer ?’ 

‘It’ll do to tell you there’s a storm when the chimney- 
pots are blowing down,’ suggested the Parnass crush- 
ingly. 

‘Put it in your window — you'll make a profit out 
of it,’ said Mendel. 

‘Not while Simeon Samuels is selling them cheaper, 
as with his Sabbath profits he can well afford to do!’ 

‘Oh, he said he’d stick to his Sabbath profit, did 
he?’ inquired the Parnass. 

“We never touched on that,’ said Peleg miserably. 
‘I couldn’t manage to work the Sabbath into the con- 





versation.’ | 

‘This is terrible.’ Barzinsky’s fist smote the table. 
‘T’ll go—let him suspect my motives or not. The 
Almighty knows they are pure.’ 

‘Bravo! Well spoken!’ There was a burst of 
applause. Several marine-dealers shot out their hands 
and grasped Barzinsky’s in admiration. 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 178 


‘Do not await me, gentlemen,’ he said importantly. 
‘Go in peace.’ 


XII 


‘Good afternoon, Mr. Samuels,’ said Solomon Bar- 
zinsky. 

‘Good afternoon, sir. What can I do for you?’ 

‘You — you don’t know me? I am a fellow-Jew. 

‘“That’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ 

‘You don’t remember me from Shool? Mr. Bar- 
zinsky! I had the rolling up of the Scroll the time 
you had the elevation of it.’ 

‘Ah, indeed. At these solemn moments I scarcely 
notice people. But I am very glad to find you patron- 
izing my humble establishment.’ 

‘I don’t want a barometer,’ said Solomon hurriedly. 

‘That is fortunate, as I have just sold my last. 
But in the way of waterproofs, we have a new pattern - 
very seasonable.’ 

‘No, no; I didn’t come for a waterproof.’ 

‘These oilskins ——’ 

‘I didn’t come to buy anything.’ 

‘Ah, you wish to sell me something.’ 

‘Not that either. The fact is, I’ve come to beg of 
you, as one Jew to another ; 

‘A Schnorrer!’ interrupted Simeon Samuels. ‘Oh, 
Lord, I ought to have recognised you by that synagogue 
beginning.’ 





174. THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘Me, a Schnorrer!’ The little man swelled skywards. 
‘Me, Solomon Barzinsky, whose shop stood in Sudmin- 
ster twenty years before you poked your nose in f 

‘I beg your pardon. There! you see I’m a beggar, 
too.” And Simeon Samuels laughed mirthlessly. 
‘Well, you’ve come to beg of me.’ And his fingers 
caressed his patriarchal beard. 

‘I don’t come on my own account only,’ Barzinsky 





stammered. 

‘I understand. You want a contribution to the 
Passover Cake Fund. My time is precious, so is 
yours. What is the Parnass giving ?’ 

‘I’m not begging for money. I represent the con- 
gregation.’ 

‘Dear me, why didn’t you come to the point quicker? 
The congregation wishes to beg my acceptance of 
office. Well, it’s very good of you all, especially as 
I’m such a recent addition. But I really feel a diff- 
dence. You see, my views of the Sabbath clash with 
those of the congregation.’ 

‘They do!’ cried Barzinsky, leaping at his opportunity. 

‘Yes, I am for a much stricter observance. than 
appears general here. Scarcely one of you carries his 
handkerchief tied round his loins like my poor old 
father, peace be upon him! You all carry the burden 
of it impiously in a pocket.’ 

‘I never noticed your handkerchief round your 
waist !’ cried the bewildered Barzinsky. 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 175 


‘Perhaps not; I never had a cold; it remained furled.’ 

Simeon Samuels’ superb insolence twitched Bar- 
zinsky’s mouth agape. ‘But you keep your shop 
open!’ he cried at last. 

‘That would be still another point of clashing,’ 
admitted Simeon Samuels blandly. ‘Altogether, you 
will see the inadvisability of my accepting office.’ 

‘Office!’ echoed Barzinsky, meeting the other’s 
ironic fence with crude thwacks. ‘Do you think a 
God-fearing congregation would offer office to a 
Sabbath-breaker ?’ 

‘Ah, so that was at the back of it. I suspected 
something underhand in your offer. I was to be given 
office, was I, on condition of closing my shop on Satur- 
day? No, Mr. Barzinsky. Go back and tell those 
who sent you that Simeon Samuels scorns stipulations, 
and that when you offer to make him Parnass uncon- 
ditionally he may consider your offer, but not till 
then. Good-bye. You must jog along with your 
present apology for a Parnass.’ 

‘You — you Elisha ben Abuyai!’ And, consoled 
only by the aptness of his reference to the atheist of 
the Talmud, Barzinsky rushed off to tell the Parnass 
how Simeon Samuels had insulted them both. 


XIII 


The Parnass, however, was not to be drawn yet. 
He must keep himself in reserve, he still insisted. But 


176 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


perhaps, he admitted, Simeon Samuels resented mere 
private members or committeemen. Let the Gabbaz go. 

Accordingly the pompous treasurer of the synagogue 
strode into the notorious shop on the Sabbath itself, 
catching Simeon Samuels red-handed. 

But nothing could be suaver than that gentleman’s 
‘Good Shabbos. What can I do for you?’ 

“You can shut up your shop,’ said the Gabbat 
brusquely. 

‘And how shall I pay your bill, then?’ 

‘I’d rather give you a seat and all the honours for 
nothing than see this desecration.’ 

“You must have a goodly surplus, then.’ 

“We have enough.’ 

‘That’s strange. You’re the first Gabbai I ever 
knew who was satisfied with his balance-sheet. Is it 
your excellent management, I wonder, or have you 
endowments ?’ 

‘That’s not for me to say. I mean we have five or 
six hundred pounds in legacies.’ 

‘Indeed! Soundly invested, I hope?’ 

‘First-class. English Railway Debentures.’ 

‘I see. Trustee stock.’ Simeon Samuels stroked 
his beard. ‘And so your whole congregation works 
on the Sabbath. A pretty confession !’ 

“What do you mean?’ 

‘Runs railway-trains, lights engine-fires, keeps 
porters and signal-men toiling, and pockets the profits !’ 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 177 


“Who does?’ 

“You, sir, in particular, as the financial representa- 
tive of the congregation. How can any Jew hold 
industrial shares in a heathen country without being 
a partner in a Sabbath business — ay, and opening on 
the Day of Atonement itself? And it is you who have 
the audacity to complain of me! I, at least, do my 
own dirty work, not hide myself behind stocks and 
shares. Good Shabbos to you, Mr. Gabbat, and kindly 
mind your own business in future — your locomotives 
and your sidings and your stinking tunnels.’ 


XIV 


The Parnass could no longer delay the diplomatic 
encounter. ”*Iwas vain to accuse the others of tact- 
lessness, and shirk the exhibition of his own tact. 
He exhibited it most convincingly by not informing 
the others that he was about to put it to a trial. 

Hence he refrained from improving a synagogue 
opportunity, but sneaked one week-day towards the 
shop. He lingered without, waiting to be invited 
within. Thus all appearance of his coming to rebuke 
would be removed. His mission should pop up from 
a casual conversation. 

He peeped into the window, passed and repassed. 

Simeon Samuels, aware of a fly hovering on the 


purlieus of his web, issued from its centre, as the 
N 


178 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


Parnass turned his back on the shop and gazed musingly 
at the sky. 

‘Looks threatening for rain, sir,’ observed Simeon 
Samuels, addressing the back. ‘Our waterproofs —— 
Bless my soul, but it surely isn’t our Parnass !’ 

‘Yes, I’m just strolling about. I seem to have 
stumbled on your establishment.’ 

‘Lucky for me.’ 

‘And a pleasure for me. I never knew you had such 
a nice display.’ 

‘Won’t you come inside, and see the stock?’ 

‘Thank you, I must really get back home. And 
besides, as you say, it is threatening for rain.’ 

‘T’lllend you a waterproof, or even sell you one cheap. 
Come in, sir — come in. Pray honour me.’ 

Congratulating himself on catching the spider, the 
fly followed him within. 

A quarter of an hour passed, in which he must buzz 
about the stock. It seemed vastly difficult to veer 
round to the Sabbath through the web of conversa- 
tion the spider wove round him. Simeon Samuels’ 
conception of a marine dealer’s stock startled him by 
its comprehensiveness, and when he was asked to 
admire an Indian shawl, he couldn’t help inquiring 
what it was doing there. 

‘Well,’ explained Simeon Samuels, ‘occasionally a 
captain or first mate will come back to England, home, 
and beauty, and will have neglected to buy foreign 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 179 


presents for his womenkind. I then remind him of 
the weakness of womenkind for such trophies of their 
menfolks’ travel.’ 

‘Excellent. I won’t tell your competitors.’ 

‘Oh, those cattle!’ Simeon snapped his fingers. ‘If 
they stole my idea, they’d not be able to carry it out. 
It’s not easy to cajole a captain.’ 

“No, you’re indeed a honeyed rascal,’ thought the 
Parnass. 

‘I also do a brisk business in chutney,’ went on 
Simeon. ‘It’s a thing women are especially fond of 
having brought back to them from India. And yet 
it’s the last thing their menkind think of till I remind 
them of it on their return.’ 

‘I certainly brought back none,’ said the Parnass, 
smiling in spite of himself. 

“You have been in India?’ 

‘I have,’ replied the Parnass, with a happy inspira- 
tion, ‘and I brought back to my wife something more 
stimulating than chutney.’ 

‘Indeed ?’ 

“Yes, the story of the Beni-Israel, the black Jews, 
who, surrounded by all those millions of Hindoos, still 
keep their Sabbath.’ 

‘Ah, poor niggers. Then you’ve been half round 
the world.’ 

‘All round the world, for I went there and back by 
different routes. And it was most touching, wherever 


180 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


I went, to find everywhere a colony of Jews, and 
everywhere the Holy Sabbath kept sacred.’ 

‘But on different days, of course,’ said Simeon 
Samuels. 

‘Eh? Not at all! On the same day.’ 

‘On the same day! How could that be? The day 
changes with every move east or west. When it’s day 
here, it’s night in Australia.’ 

Darkness began to cloud the presidential brow. 

‘Don’t you try to make black white!’ he said 
angrily. 

‘It’s you that are trying to make white black,’ re- 
torted Simeon Samuels. ‘Perhaps you don’t know 
that I hail from Australia, and that by working on 
Saturday I escape profaning my native Australian 
Sabbath, while you, who have been all round the 
world, and have either lost or gained a day, according 
as you travelled east or west, are desecrating your 
original Sabbath either by working on Friday or 
smoking on Sunday.’ 

The Parnass felt his head going round —he didn’t 
know whether east or west. He tried to clear it by a 
pinch of snuff, which he in vain strove to make 
judicial. 

‘Oh, and so, and so — atchew! — and so you’re the 
saint and I’m the sinner!’ he cried sarcastically. 

‘No, I don’t profess to be a saint,’ replied Simeon 
Samuels somewhat unexpectedly. ‘But I do think 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 181 


the Saturday was meant for Palestine, not for the 
lands of the Exile, where another day of rest rules. 
When you were in India you probably noted that the 
Mohammedans keep Friday. A poor Jew in the 
bazaar is robbed of his Hindoo customers on Friday, 
of his Jews on Saturday, and his Christians on 
Sunday.’ 

‘The Fourth Commandment is eternal!’ said the 
Parnass with obstinate sublimity. 

‘But the Fifth says, “that thy days may be long 
in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” I 
believe this reward belongs to all the first five Com- 
mandments — not only to the Fifth — else an orphan 
would have no chance of long life. Keep the Sabbath 
in the land that the Lord giveth thee; not in England, 
which isn’t thine.’ 

‘Oho!’ retorted the Parnass. ‘Then at that rate 
in England you needn’t honour your father and 
mother.’ 

‘Not if you haven’t got them!’ rejoined Simeon 
Samuels. ‘And if you haven’t got a land, you can’t 
keep its Sabbath. Perhaps you think we can keep 
the Jubilee also without a country.’ 

‘The Sabbath is eternal,’ repeated the epee 
doggedly. ‘It has nothing to do with countries. 
Before we got to the Promised Land we kept the 
Sabbath in the wilderness.’ 

‘Yes, and God sent a double dose of manna on the 


182 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


Friday. Do you mean to say He sends us here a double 
dose of profit?’ 

‘He doesn’t let us starve. We prospered well 
enough before you brought your wretched example ——’ 

‘Then my wretched example cannot lead the con- 
gregation away. I am glad of it. You do them 
much more harm by your way of Sabbath-breaking.’ 

‘My way!’ 

“Yes, my dear old father — Peace be upon him! — 
would have been scandalized to see the burden you 
carry on the Sabbath.’ 

‘What burden do I carry ?’ 

‘Your snuff-box!’ 

The Parnass almost dropped it. ‘That little thing !’ 

‘I call it a cumbrous, not to say tasteless, thing. 
But before the Almighty there is no great and no 
small. One who stands in such a high place in the 
synagogue must be especially mindful, and every 
unnecessary burden ——’ 

‘But snuff is necessary forme— I can’t do without it.’ 

‘Other Presidents have done without it. As it is 
written in Jeremiah: ‘And the wild asses did stand 
in the high places; they snuffed up the wind.” ’ 

The Parnass flushed like a beetroot. ‘Ill teach 
vou to know your place, sir.’ He turned his back on 
the scoffer, and strode towards the door. 

‘But if you’d care for a smaller snuff-box,’ said 
Simeon Samuels, ‘I have an artistic assortment.’ 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 1838 


XV 


At the next meeting of the Synagogue Council a 
notice of motion stood upon the agenda in the name 
of the Parnass himself :— 

‘That this Council views with the greatest repro- 
bation the breach of the Fourth Commandment com- 
mitted weekly by a member of the congregation, and 
calls upon him either to resign his seat, with the burial 
and other rights appertaining thereto, or to close 
his business on the Sabbath.’ 

When the resolution came up Mr. Solomon Barzinsky 
moved as an amendment that weekly be altered into 
“twice a week,’ since the member kept open on Friday 
night as well as Saturday. 

The Parnass refused to accept the amendment. There 
was only one Sabbath a week, though it had two periods. 
“And the evening and the morning were one day.’ 

Mr. Peleg supported the amendment. They must 
not leave Mr. Simeon Samuels a loophole of escape. 
It was also, he said, the duty of the Council to buy a 
barometer the rogue had foisted upon him. 

After an animated discussion, mainly about the 
barometer, the President accepted the amendment, 
but produced a great impression by altering ‘twice 
a week’ into ‘bi-weekly.’ 

A Mr. John Straumann, however, who prided himself 
on his style, and had even changed his name to John 


184 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


because Jacob grated on his delicate ear, refused to be 
impressed. 

Committed bi-weekly by a member sounded almost 
jocose, he argued. ‘Buy! buy!’ it sounded like a 
butcher’s cry. 

Mr. Enoch, the kosher butcher, rose amid excitement, 
and asked if he had come there to be insulted! 

‘Sit down! sit down!’ said the Parnass roughly. 
‘It’s no matter how the resolution sounds. It will be 
in writing.’ 

‘Then why not add,’ sarcastically persisted the 
stylist, ‘“‘Committed bi-weekly by a member by buying 
and selling.””’ 

‘Order, order!’ said the Parnass angrily. ‘Those 
who are in favour of the resolution! Carried.’ 

‘By a majority,’ sneered the stylist, subsiding. 

‘Mr. Secretary;’ the President turned to the poor 
Reverend-of-all-work —‘you need not record this 
verbal discussion in the minutes.’ 

‘By request,’ said the stylist, reviving. 

‘But what’s the use of the resolution if you. don’t 
mention the member’s name?’ suddenly inquired 
Ephraim Mendel, stretching his long lanky limbs. 

‘But there’s only one Sabbath-breaker,’ replied the 
Parnass. 

“To-day, yes, but to-morrow there might be two.’ 

‘It could hardly be to-morrow,’ said the stylist. 
‘For that happens to be a Monday.’ 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 185 


Barzinsky bashed the table. ‘Mr. President, are 
we here for business or are we not?’ 

‘You may be here for business—I am here for 
religion,’ retorted Straumann the stylist. 

‘You— you snub-nosed monkey, what do you 
mean ?’ | 

‘Order, order, gentlemen,’ said the Parnass. 

‘I will not order,’ said Solomon Barzinsky excited. 
‘I did not come here to be insulted. 

‘Insulted!’ quoth Straumann. ‘It’s you that must 
apologize, you illiterate ichthyosaurus! I appeal to 
the President.’ 

‘You have both insulted me,’ was that worthy’s 
ruling. ‘I give the word to Mr. Mendel.’ 

‘But ——’ from both the combatants simultaneously. 

‘Order, order!’ from a dozen throats. 

‘I said Simeon Samuels’ name must be put in,’ 
Mendel repeated. 

‘You should have said so before — the resolution is 
carried now,’ said the President. 

‘And a fat lot of good it will do,’ said Peleg. ‘Gentle- 
men, if you knew him as well as I, if you had my 
barometer to read him by, you’d see that the only 
remedy is to put him in Cherem (excommunication).’ 

‘If he can’t get buried it zs a kind of Cherem,’ said 
the Gabbai. 

‘Assuredly,’ added the Parnass. ‘He will be fright- 
ened to think that if he dies suddenly ——’ 


186 ZTHE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘And he is sure to take a sudden death,’ put in 
Barzinsky with unction. 

‘He will not be buried among Jews,’ wound up the 
Parnass. 

‘Hear, hear!’ A murmur of satisfaction ran round 
the table. All felt that Simeon Samuels was cornered 
at last. It was resolved that the resolution be sent to 
him. 


XVI 


‘Mr. Simeon Samuels requests me to say that he 
presents his compliments to the secretary of the Sud- 
minster Hebrew Congregation, and begs to acknowledge 
the receipt of the Council’s resolution. In reply 
I am to state that Mr. Samuels regrets that his views 
on the Sabbath question should differ from those of 
his fellow-worshippers, but he has not attempted to 
impress his views on the majority, and he regrets that 
in a free country like England they should have im- 
ported the tyranny of the lands of persecution from 
which they came. Fortunately such procedure is illegal. 
By the act of Charles I. the Sabbath is defined as 
the Sunday, and as a British subject Mr. Samuels 
takes his stand upon the British Constitution. Mr. 
Samuels has done his best to compromise with the 
congregation by attending the Sabbath service on 
the day most convenient to the majority. In regard to 
the veiled threat of the refusal of burial rights, Mr. 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 187 


Samuels desires me to say that he has no intention 
of dying in Sudminster, but merely of getting his living 
there. In any case, under his will, his body is to be 
deported to Jerusalem, where he has already acquired 
a burying-place.’ 

‘Next year in Jerusalem!’ cried Barzinsky fervently, 
when this was read to the next meeting. 

‘Order, order,’ said the Parnass. ‘I don’t believe in 
his Jerusalem grave. They won’t admit his dead body.’ 

‘He relies on smuggling in alive,’ said Barzinsky 
gloomily, ‘as soon as he has made his pile.’ 

“That won’t be very long at this rate,’ added Ephraim 
Mendel. 

‘The sooner the better,’ said the Gabbaz impatiently. 
‘Let him go to Jericho.’ 

There was a burst of laughter, to the Gabbaz’s great 
astonishment. 

‘Order, order, gentlemen,’ said the Parnass. ‘Don’t 
you see from this insolent letter how right I was? 
The rascal threatens to drag us to the Christian Courts, 
that’s clear. All that about Jerusalem is only dust 
thrown into our eyes.’ 

‘Grave-dust,’ murmured Straumann. 

‘Order! He is a dangerous customer.’ 

‘Shopkeeper,’ corrected Straumann. 

The Parnass glared, but took snuff silently. 

‘I don’t wonder he laughed at us,’ said Straumann, 
encouraged. ‘Bi-weekly byamember. Ha! ha! ha!’ 


188 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘Mr. President!’ Barzinsky screamed. ‘Will you 
throw that laughing hyena out, or shall I?’ 

Straumann froze to a statue of dignity. ‘Let any 
animalcule try it on,’ said he. 

‘Shut up, you children, Pll chuck you both out,’ 
said Ephraim Mendel in conciliatory tones. ‘The 
point is — what’s to be done now, Mr. President ?? 

‘Nothing — till the end of the year. When he offers 
his new subscription we refuse to take it. That can’t 
be illegal.’ 

‘We ought all to go to him in a friendly deputation,’ 
said Straumann. ‘These formal resolutions, “Buy! 
buy!’’ put his back up. We’ll go to him as brothers — 
all Israel are brethren, and blood is thicker than water.’ 

‘Chutney is thicker than blood,’ put in the Parnass 
mysteriously. ‘He’ll simply try to palm off his stock 
on the deputation.’ 

Ephraim Mendel and Solomon Barzinsky jumped 
up simultaneously. ‘What a good idea,’ said Ephraim. 
‘There you have hit it!’ said Solomon. ‘Their simulta- 
neous popping-up had an air of finality — like the long 
and the short of it! 

“You mean?’ said the Parnass, befogged in his turn. 

‘I mean,’ said Barzinsky, ‘we could buy up his stock, 
me and the other marine-dealers between us, and he 
could clear out !’ 

‘If he sold it reasonably,’ added Mendel. 

‘Even unreasonably you must make a sacrifice for 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 189 


the Sabbath,’ said the Parnass. ‘Besides, divided 
among the lot of you, the loss would be little.’ 

‘And you can buy in my barometer with the rest,’ 
added Peleg. 

‘We could call a meeting of marine-dealers,’ said 
Barzinsky, disregarding him. ‘We could say to them 
we must sacrifice ourselves for our religion.’ 

‘Tell that to the marine-dealers !’ murmured Strau- 
mann. 

‘And that we must buy out the Sabbath-breaker at 
any cost.’ 

‘Buy! buy!’ said Straumann. ‘If you’d only thought 
of that sort of ‘Buy! buy!”’ at the first !’ 

‘Order, order !’ said the Parnass. 

‘It would be more in order,’ said Straumann, ‘to 
appoint an executive sub-committee to deal with the 
question. I’m sick of it. And surely we as a Syna- 
gogue Council can’t be in order in ordering some of 
our members to buy out another.’ 

‘Hear, hear!’ His suggestion found general ap- 
proval. It took a long discussion, however, before 
the synagogue decided to wash its hands of responsi- 
bility, and give over to a sub-committee of three the 
task of ridding Sudminster of its plague-spot by any 
means that commended itself to them. 

Solomon Barzinsky, Ephraim Mendel, and Peleg the 
pawnbroker were elected to constitute this Council of 
Three. 


199 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


XVII 


The glad news spread through the Sudminster Con- 
gregation that Simeon Samuels had at last been bought 
out — at a terrible loss to the martyred marine-dealers 
who had had to load themselves with chutney and 
other unheard-of and unsaleable stock. But they 
would get back their losses, it was felt, by the removal 
of his rivalry. Carts were drawn up before the dis- 
mantled plate-glass window carrying off its criminal 
contents, and Simeon Samuels stood stroking his 
beard amid the ruins. 

Then the shop closed; the shutters that should have 
honoured the Sabbath now depressed the Tuesday. 
Simeon Samuels was seen to get into the London train. 
The demon that troubled their sanctity had been 
exorcised. A great peace reigned in every heart, 
almost like the Sabbath peace coming into the middle 
of the week. 

‘If they had only taken my advice earlier,’ said 
Solomon Barzinsky to his wife, as he rolled his forkful 
of beef in the chutney. 

“You can write to your father, Deborah,’ said Lazarus 
Levy, ‘that we no longer need the superior reach-me- 
downs.’ . 

On the Wednesday strange new rumours began to 
circulate, and those who hastened to confirm them stood 
dumfounded before great posters on all the shutters: 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 191 


CLOSED FOR RE-STOCKING 


THE OLD-FASHIONED STOCK OF THIS BUSINESS 
HAVING BEEN SOLD OFF TO THE TRADE, 


SIMEON SAMUELS 


IS TAKING THE OPPORTUNITY 
TO LAY IN THE BEST AND MOST UP-TO-DATE 


LONDON AND CONTINENTAL GOODS 
FOR HIS CUSTOMERS. 
BARGAINS AND NOVELTIES IN EVERY DEPARTMENT. 
RE-OPEN SATURDAY NEXT. 


XVIII 


A hurried emergency meeting of the Executive Sub- 
Committee was called. 

‘He has swindled us,’ said Solomon Barzinsky. 
‘This paper signed by him merely undertakes to shut 
up his shop. And he will plead he meant for a day 
or two.’ 

‘And he agreed to leave the town,’ wailed Peleg, 
‘but he meant to buy goods.’ 

‘Well, we can have the law of him,’ said Mendel. 
‘We paid him compensation for disturbance.’ 

‘And can’t he claim he was disturbed?’ shrieked 
Barzinsky. ‘His whole stock turned upside down!’ 

‘Let him claim!’ said Mendel. ‘There is such a 
thing as obtaining money under false pretences.’ 


192 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘And such a thing as becoming the laughing-stock 
of the heathen,’ said Peleg. ‘We must grin and bear 
it ourselves.’ 

‘It’s all very well for you to grin,’ said Solomon 
tartly. ‘We’ve got to bear it. You didn’t take over 
any of his old rubbish.’ 

‘Didn’t I, indeed? What about the barometer?’ 

‘Confound your barometer!’ cried Ephraim Mendel. 
‘T’ll have the law of him; I’ve made up my mind.’ 

‘Well, you’ll have to bear the cost, then,’ said Peleg. 
‘It’s none of my business.’ 

‘Yes, it is,’ shouted Mendel. ‘As a member of the 
Sub-Committee you can’t dissociate yourselves from us.’ 

‘A nice idea that—I’m to be dragged into your 
law-suits !’ 

‘Hush, leave off these squabbles!’ said Solomon 
Barzinsky. ‘The law is slow, and not even sure. The 
time has come for desperate measures. We must root 
out the plague-spot with our own hands.’ 

‘Hear, hear,’ said the rest of the Sub-Committee. 


XIX 


On the succeeding Sabbath Simeon Samuels was not 
the only figure in the synagogue absorbed in devotion. 
Solomon Barzinsky, Ephraim Mendel, and Peleg the 
pawnbroker were all rapt in equal’ piety, while the rest 
of the congregation was shaken with dreadful gossip 
about them. ‘Their shops were open, too, it would seem. 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 193 


Immediately after the service the Parnass arrested 
Solomon Barzinsky’s exit, and asked him if the rumour 
were true. 

‘Perfectly true,’ replied Solomon placidly. ‘The 
Executive Sub-Committee passed the resolution to——’ 
‘To break the Sabbath!’ interrupted the Parnass. 

“We had already sacrificed our money; there was 
nothing left but to sacrifice our deepest feelings 

‘But what for?’ 

‘Why, to destroy his advantage, of course. Five- 
sixths of his Sabbath profits depend on the marine- 
dealers closing, and when he sees he’s breaking the 
Sabbath in vain : 


‘Rubbish! You are asked to stop a congregational 











infection, and you 

‘Vaccinate ourselves with the same stuff, to make 
sure the attack shall be light.’ 

‘It’s a hair of the dog that bit us,’ said Mendel, who, 
with Peleg, had lingered to back up Barzinsky. 

‘Of the mad dog!’ exclaimed the Parnass. ‘And 
you're all raging mad.’ 

‘It’s the only sane way,’ urged Peleg. ‘When he 


? 





sees his rivals open 
‘You!’ The President turned on him. ‘You are 
not even a marine-dealer. Why are you open?’ 
‘How could I dissociate myself from the rest of the 
Sub-Committee?’ inquired Peleg with righteous indig- 
nation. 


194 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


‘You are a set of sinners in Israel!’ cried the Parnass, 
forgetting even to take snuff. ‘This will split up the 
congregation.’ 

‘The congregation through its Council gave the 
Committee full power to deal with the matter,’ said 
Barzinsky with dignity. 

‘But then the other marine-dealers will open as well 
as the Committee!’ 

‘I trust not,’ replied Barzinsky fervently. ‘Two 
of us are enough to cut down his takings.’ 

‘But the whole lot of you would be still more effica- 
cious. Oh, this is the destruction of our congregation, 
the death of our religion !” 

‘No, no, no,’ said Solomon soothingly. ‘You are 
mistaken. We are most careful not to touch money. 
We are going to trust our customers, and keep our 
accounts without pen or ink. We have invented a 
most ingenious system, which gives us far more work 
than writing, but we have determined to spare our- 
selves no trouble to keep the Sabbath from unnecessary 
desecration.’ 

‘And once the customers don’t pay up, your system 
will break down. No, no; I shall write to the Chief 
Rabbi.’ 

‘We will explain our motives,’ said Mendel. 

‘Your motives need no explanation. This scandal 
must cease.’ 

‘And who are you to give orders?’ shrieked Solomon 


THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 195 


Barzinsky. ‘You’re not speaking to a Schnorrer, mind 
you. My banking account is every bit as big as yours. 
For two pins I start an opposition Shool.’ 

‘A Sunday Shool!’ said the Parnass sarcastically. 

‘And why not? It would be better than sitting 
playing solo on Sundays. We are not in Palestine 
now.’ 

‘Oh, Simeon Samuels has been talking to you, has 
he ?? 

‘I don’t need Simeon Samuels’ wisdom. I’m an 
Englishman myself.’ 


XX 


The desperate measures of the Sub-Committee were 
successful. The other marine-dealers hastened to 
associate themselves with the plan of campaign, and 
Simeon Samuels soon departed in search of a more 
pious seaport. 

But, alas! homceopathy was only half-vindicated, 
For the remedy proved worse than the disease, and 
the cutting-out of the original plague-spot left the 
other marine-stores still infected. ‘The epidemic spread 
from them till it had overtaken half the shops of the 
congregation. Some had it in a mild form — only 
one shutter open, or a back door not closed — but 
in many it came out over the whole shop-window. 

The one bright spot in the story of the Sudminster 
Sabbath is that the congregation of which the present 


196 THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER 


esteemed Parnass is Solomon Barzinsky, Esq., J.P., 
managed to avert the threatened split, and that while 
in so many other orthodox synagogues the poor 
minister preaches on the Sabbath to empty benches, 
the Sudminster congregation still remains at the 
happy point of compromise acutely discovered by 
Simeon Samuels: of listening reverentially every 
Saturday morning to the unchanging principles of its 
minister-elect, the while its shops are engaged in 
supplying the wants of Christendom. 






i} 





| THE RED MARK | 





ASA POE A aM Ave 
ATA NRRL Ne 

He ih biti! 

at 


yk 





Via 
Mahisya 
Hh 
Wo ; 
' 





HE -RED MARK 


THE curious episode in the London Ghetto the other 
winter, while the epidemic of small-pox was raging, 
escaped the attention of the reporters, though in the 
world of the Board-schools it is a vivid memory. But 
even the teachers and the committees, the inspectors 
and the Board members, have remained ignorant of 
the part little Bloomah Beckenstein played in it. 

To explain how she came to be outside the school 
gates instead of inside them, we must go back a little 
and explain her situation both outside and inside her 
school. 

Bloomah was probably ‘Blume,’ which is German 
for a flower, but she had always been spelt ‘Bloomah’ 
in the school register, for even Board-school teachers 
are not necessarily familiar with foreign languages. 

They might have been forgiven for not connecting 
Bloomah with blooms, for she was a sad-faced child, 
and even in her tenth year showed deep, dark circles 
round her eyes. But they were beautiful eyes, large, 
brown, and soft, shining with love and obedience. 


Mrs. Beckenstein, however, found neither of these 
199 


200 THE RED MARK 


qualities in her youngest born, who seemed to her 
entirely sucked up by the school. 

‘In my days,’ she would grumble, ‘it used to be 
God Almighty first, your parents next, and school last. 
Now it’s all a red mark first, your parents and God 
Almighty nowhere.’ 

The red mark was the symbol of punctuality, set 
opposite the child’s name in the register. To gain it, 
she must be in her place at nine o’clock to the stroke. 
A moment after nine, and only the black mark was 
attainable. ‘Twenty to ten, and the duck’s egg of the 
absent was sorrowfully inscribed by the Recording 
Angel, who in Bloomah’s case was a pale pupil-teacher 
with eyeglasses. 

But it was the Banner which loomed largest on the 
school horizon, intensifying Bloomah’s anxiety and 
her mother’s grievance. 

‘I don’t see nothing,’ Mrs. Beckenstein iterated; 
‘no prize, no medal — nothing but a red mark and a 
banner.’ 

The Banner was indeed a novelty. It had not un- 
furled itself in Mrs. Beckenstein’s young days, nor 
even in the young days of Bloomah’s married brothers 
and sisters. 

As the worthy matron would say: ‘There’s been 
Jack Beckenstein, there’s been Joey Beckenstein, 
there’s been Briny Beckenstein, there’s been Benjy 
Beckenstein, there’s been Ada Beckenstein, there’s 


- THE RED MARK 201 


been Becky Beckenstein, God bless their hearts! and 
they all grew up scholards and prize-winners and a 
credit to their Queen and their religion without this 
Meshuggas (madness) of a Banner.’ 

Vaguely Mrs. Beckenstein connected the degenerate 
innovation with the invasion of the school by ‘fur- 
riners’ —all these hordes of Russian, Polish, and 
Roumanian Jews flying from persecution, who were 
sweeping away the good old English families, of which 
she considered the Beckensteins a shining example. 
What did English people want with banners and such- 
like gewgaws ? 

The Banner was a class trophy of regularity and 
punctuality. It might be said metaphorically to be 
made of red marks; and, indeed, its ground-hue was 
purple. 

The class that had scored the highest weekly average 
of red marks enjoyed its emblazoned splendours for 
the next week. It hung by a cord on the classroom 
wall, amid the dull, drab maps — a glorious sight with 
its oaken frame and its rich-coloured design in silk. 
Life moved to a chivalrous music, lessons went more 
easily, in presence of its proud pomp: ’twas like 
marching to a band instead of painfully plodding. 

And the desire to keep it became a passion to the 
winners; the little girls strained every nerve never to 
be late or absent; but, alas! some mischance would 
occur to one or other, and it passed, in its purple and 


202 THE RED MARK 


gold, to some strenuous and luckier class in another 
section of the building, turning to a funeral-banner as 
it disappeared dismally through the door of the cold 
and empty room. 

Woe to the late-comer who imperilled the Banner. 
The black mark on the register was a snowflake com- 
pared with the black frown on all those childish fore- 
heads. As for the absentee, the scowls that would 
meet her return not improbably operated to prolong 
her absence. 

Only once had Bloomah’s class won the trophy, and 
that was largely through a yellow fog which hit the 
other classes worse. 

For Bloomah was the black sheep that spoilt the 
chances of the fold —the black sheep with the black 
marks. Perhaps those great rings round her eyes 
were the black marks incarnate, so morbidly did the 
poor child grieve over her sins of omission. 

Yet these sins of omission were virtues of commis- 
sion elsewhere; for if Bloomah’s desk was vacant, it 
was only because Bloomah was slaving at something 
that her mother considered more important. 

‘The Beckenstein family first, the workshop second, 
and school nowhere,’ Bloomah might have retorted on 
her mother. 

At home she was the girl-of-all-work. In the living- 
rooms she did cooking and washing and sweeping; in 
the shop above, whenever a hand fell sick or work 


THE RED MARK 203 


fell heavy, she was utilized to make buttonholes, school 
hours or no school hours. : 

Bloomah was likewise the errand-girl of the estab- 
lishment, and the portress of goods to and from S. 
Cohn’s Emporium in Holloway, and the watch-dog 
when Mrs. Beckenstein went shopping or pleasuring. 

‘Lock up the house!’ the latter would cry, when 
Bloomah tearfully pleaded for that course. ‘My things 
are much too valuable to be locked up. But I know 
you’d rather lose my jewellery than your precious 
Banner.’ 

When Mrs. Beckenstein had new grandchildren — 
and they came frequently — Bloomah would be sum- 
moned in hot haste to the new scene of service. Curt 
post-cards came on these occasions, thus conceived: 


‘DEAR MOTHER, 


‘A son. Send Bloomah. 
‘BRINY.’ 


Sometimes these messages were mournfully inverted : 


‘DEAR MOTHER, 
‘Poor little Rachie is gone. Send Bloomah to 
your heart-broken LBECKY:/ 


Occasionally the post-card went the other way: 


‘Dear BECKY, 
‘Send back Bloomah. 
“Your loving mother.’ 


204 THE RED MARK 


The care of her elder brother Daniel was also part 
of Bloomah’s burden; and in the evenings she had to 
keep an eye on his street sports and comrades, for 
since he had shocked his parents by dumping down 
a new pair of boots on the table, he could not be trusted 
without supervision. 

Not that he had stolen the boots—far worse! Be- 
guiled by a card cunningly printed in Hebrew, he had 
attended the evening classes of the Meshummodim, 
those converted Jews who try to bribe their brethren 
from the faith, and who are the bugbear and execra- 
tion of the Ghetto. 

Daniel was thereafter looked upon at home as a 
lamb who had escaped from the lion’s den, and must 
be the object of their vengeful pursuit, while on 
Bloomah devolved the duties of shepherd and sheep- 
dog. 

It was in the midst of all these diverse duties that 
Bloomah tried to go to school by day, and do her home 
lessons by night. She did not murmur against her 
mother, though she often pleaded. She recognised 
that the poor woman was similarly distracted between 
domestic duties and turns at the machines upstairs. 

Only it was hard for the child to dovetail the two 
halves of her life. At night she must sit up as late as 
her elders, poring over her school books, and in the 
morning it was a fierce rush to get through her share 
of the housework in time for the red mark. In Mrs. 


THE RED MARK 205 


Beckenstein’s language: ‘Don’t eat, don’t sleep, boil 
nor bake, stew nor roast, nor fry, nor nothing.’ 

Her case was even worse than her mother imagined, 
for sometimes it was ten minutes to nine before Bloomah 
could sit down to her own breakfast, and then the 
steaming cup of tea served by her mother was a terrible 
hindrance: and if that good woman’s head was turned, 
Bloomah would sneak towards the improvised sink — 
which consisted of two dirty buckets, the one holding 
the clean water being recognisable by the tin pot stand- 
ing on its covering-board — where she would pour half 
her tea into the one bucket and fill up from the other. 

When this stratagem was impossible, she almost 
scalded herself in her gulpy haste. Then how she 
snatched up her satchel and ran through rain, or snow, 
or fog, or scorching sunshine! Yet often she lost her 
breath without gaining her mark, and as she cowered 
tearfully under the angry eyes of the classroom, a stab 
at her heart was added to the stitch in her side. 

It made her classmates only the angrier that, despite 
all her unpunctuality she kept a high position in the 
class, even if she could never quite attain prize-rank. 

But there came a week when Bloomah’s family 
remained astonishingly quiet and self-sufficient, and it 
looked as if the Banner might once again adorn the dry, 
scholastic room and throw a halo of romance round the 
blackboard. 

Then a curious calamity befell. A girl who had left 


206 THE RED MARK 


the school for another at the end of the previous week, 
returned on the Thursday, explaining that her parents 
had decided to keep her in the old school. An indig- 
nant heart-cry broke through all the discipline: 

‘Teacher, don’t have her!’ 

From Bloomah burst the peremptory command: 
“Go back, Sarah!’ 

For the unlucky children felt that her interval would 
now be reckoned one of absence. And they were right. 
Sarah reduced the gross attendance by six, and the 
Banner was lost. 

Yet to have been so near incited them to a fresh 
spurt. Again the tantalizing Thursday was reached 
before their hopes were dashed. This time the 
breakdown was even crueller, for every pinafored 
pupil, not excluding Bloomah, was in her place, red- 
marked. 

Upon this saintly company burst suddenly Bloomah’s 
mother, who, ignoring the teacher, and pointing her 
finger dramatically at her daughter, cried: 

‘Bloomah Beckenstein, go home!’ 

Bloomah’s face became one large red mark, at which 
all the other girls’ eyes were directed. ‘Tears of hu- 
miliation and distress dripped down her cheeks over 
the dark rings. If she were thus haled off ere she had 
received two hours of secular instruction, her attendance 
would be cancelled. 

The class was all in confusion. ‘Fold arms!’ cried 


THE RED MARK 207 


the teacher sharply, and the girls sat up rigidly. Bloo- 
mah obeyed instinctively with the rest. 

‘Bloomah Beckenstein, do you want me to pull you 
out by your plait?’ 

‘Mrs. Beckenstein, really you mustn’t come here 
like that !’ said the teacher in her most ladylike accents. 

‘Tell Bloomah that,’ answered Mrs. Beckenstein, 
unimpressed. ‘She’s come here by runnin’ away 
from home. There’s nobody but her to see to things, 
for we are all broken in our bones from dancin’ at a 
weddin’ last night, and comin’ home at four in the 
mornin’, and pourin’ cats and dogs. If you go to our 
house, please, teacher, you’ll see my Benjy in bed; 
he’s given up his day’s work; he must have his sleep; 
he earns three pounds a week as head cutter at S. 
Cohn’s —he can afford to be in bed, thank God! 
So now, then, Bloomah Beckenstein! Don’t they 
teach you here: ‘‘ Honour thy father and thy mother”’ ?’ 

Poor Bloomah rose, feeling vaguely that fathers and 
mothers should not dishonour their children. With 
hanging head she moved’ to the door, and burst into 
a passion of tears as soon as she got outside. 

After, if not in consequence of, this behaviour, 
Mrs. Beckenstein broke her leg, and lay for weeks with 
the limb cased in plaster-of-Paris. That finished the 
chances of the Banner for a long time. Between nursing 
and house management Bloomah could scarcely ever 
put in an attendance. 


208 THE RED MARK 


So heavily did her twin troubles weigh upon the 
sensitive child day and night that she walked almost 
with a limp, and dreamed of her name in the register 
with ominous rows of black ciphers; they stretched on 
and on to infinity —in vain did she turn page after 
page in the hope of a red mark; the little black eggs 
became larger and larger, till at last horrid horned 
insects began to creep from them and scramble all 
over her, and she woke with creeping flesh. Some- 
times she lay swathed and choking in the coils of a 
Black Banner. 

And, to add to these worries, the School Board 
officer hovered and buzzed around, threatening sum- 
monses. 

But at last she was able to escape to her beloved 
school. The expected scowl of the room was changed 
to a sigh of relief; extremes meet, and her absence had 
been so prolonged that reproach was turned to welcome. 

Bloomah remorsefully redoubled her exertions. The 
hope of the Banner flamed anew in every breast. But 
the other classes were no less keen; a fifth standard, in 
particular, kept the Banner for a full month, grimly 
holding it against all comers, came they ever so regu- 
larly and punctually. 

Suddenly a new and melancholy factor entered into 
the competition. An epidemic of small-pox broke out 
in the East End, with its haphazard effects upon the 
varying classes. Red marks, and black marks, medals 


THE RED MARK 209 


and prizes, all was luck and lottery. The pride of the 
fifth standard was laid low; one of its girls was at- 
tacked, two others were kept at home through parental 
panic. A disturbing insecurity as of an earthquake 
vibrated through the school. In Bloomah’s class alone 
—as if inspired by her martial determination — the 
ranks stood firm, unwavering. 

The epidemic spread. The Ghetto began to talk of 
special psalms in the little synagogues. 

In this crisis which the epidemic produced the Banner 
seemed drifting steadily towards Bloomah and her 
mates. They started Monday morning with all hands 
on deck, so to speak; they sailed round Tuesday and 
Wednesday without a black mark in the school-log. 
The Thursday on which they had so often split was 
passed under full canvas, and if they could only get 
through Friday the trophy was theirs. 

And Friday was the easiest day of all, inasmuch as, 
in view of the incoming Sabbath, it finished earlier. 
School did not break up between the two attendances; 
there was a mere dinner-interval in the playground at 
midday. Nobody could get away, and whoever scored 
the first mark was sure of the second. 

Bloomah was up before dawn on the fateful winter 
morning; she could run no risks of being late. She 
polished off all her house-work, wondering anxiously 
if any of her classmates would oversleep herself, yet 
at heart confident that all were as eager as she. Still 

P 


210 THE RED MARK 


there was always that troublesome small-pox —— ! 
She breathed a prayer that God would keep all the 
little girls and send them the Banner. 

As she sat at breakfast the postman brought a post- 
card for her mother. Bloomah’s heart was in her 
mouth when Mrs. Beckenstein clucked her tongue in 
reading it. She felt sure that the epidemic had invaded 
one of those numerous family hearths. 

Her mother handed her the card silently. 


‘DEAR MOTHER, 
‘I am rakked with neuraljia. Send Bloomah 
to fry the fish. 
* BECKY.’ 


Bloomah turned white; this was scarcely less tragic. 
‘Poor Becky !’ said her heedless parent. } 
‘‘There’s time after school,’ she faltered. 

‘What! shrieked Mrs. Beckenstein. ‘And not 
give the fish time to get cold! It’s that red mark 
again — sooner than lose it you’d see your own sister 
eat hot fish. Be off at once to her, you unnatural brat, 
or I’ll bang the frying-pan about your head. That’ll 
give you a red mark — yes, and a black mark, too! 
My poor Becky never persecuted me with Banners, 
and she’s twice the scholard you are.’ 

‘Why, she can’t spell ‘“neuralgia,”’ said Bloomah 
resentfully. 


THE RED MARK 211 


‘And who wants to spell a thing like that? It’s 
bad enough to feel it. Wait till you have babies and 
neuralgy of your own, and you’ll see how you’ll spell.’ 

‘She can’t spell ‘‘racked”’ either,’ put in Daniel. 

His mother turned on him witheringly. ‘She didn’t 
go to school with the Meshummodim.’ 

Bloomah suddenly picked up her satchel. 

‘What’s your books for? You don’t fry fish with 
books.’ Mrs. Beckenstein wrested it away from her, 
and dashed it on the floor. The pencil-case rolled one 
way, the thimble another. 

‘But I can get to school for the afternoon attend- 
ance.’ 

‘Madness! With your sister in agony? Have 
you no feelings? Don’t let me see your brazen face 
before the Sabbath !’ 

Bloomah crept out broken-hearted. On the way 
to Becky’s her feet turned of themselves by long habit 
down the miry street in which the red-brick school- 
building rose in dreary importance. ‘The sight of the 
great iron gate and the hurrying children caused her a 
throb of guilt. For a moment she stood wrestling with 
the temptation to enter. 

It was but for the moment. She might rise to the 
heresy of hot fried fish in lieu of cold, but Becky’s 
Sabbath altogether devoid of fried fish was a thought 
too sacrilegious for her childish brain. 

From her earliest babyhood chunks of cold fried 


212 THE RED MARK 


fish had been part of her conception of the Day of Rest. 
Visions and odours of her mother frying plaice and 
soles — at worst, cod or mackerel — were inwoven with 
her most sacred memories of the coming Sabbath; it 
is probable she thought Friday was short for frying- 
day. 

With a sob she turned back, hurrying as if to escape 
the tug of temptation. 

‘Bloomah! Where are you off to?’ 

It was the alarmed cry of a classmate. Bloomah 
took to her heels, her face a fiery mass of shame and 
grief. 

Towards midday Becky’s fish, nicely browned and 
sprigged with parsley, stood cooling on the great blue 
willow-pattern dish, and Becky’s neuralgia abated, 
perhaps from the mental relief of the spectacle. 

When the clock struck twelve, Bloomah was allowed 
to scamper off to school in the desperate hope of saving 
the afternoon attendance. 

The London sky was of lead, and the London 
pavement of mud, but her heart was aglow with hope. 
As she reached the familiar street a certain strangeness 
in its aspect struck her. People stood at the doors 
gossiping and excited, as though no Sabbath pots 
were a-cooking; straggling groups possessed the road- 
way, impeding her advance, and as she got nearer to 
the school the crowd thickened, the roadway became 
impassable, a gesticulating mob blocked the iron gate. 


THE RED MARK 218 


Poor Bloomah paused in her breathless career ready 
to cry at this malicious fate fighting against her, and for 
the first time allowing herself time to speculate on what 
was up? All around her she became aware of weep- 
ing and wailing and shrieking and wringing of hands. 

The throng was chiefly composed of Russian and 
Roumanian women of the latest immigration, as she 
could tell by the pious wigs hiding their tresses. 
Those in the front were pressed against the bars of 
the locked gate, shrieking through them, shaking them 
with passion. 

Although Bloomah’s knowledge of Yiddish was 
slight — as became a scion of an old English family — 
she could make out their elemental ejaculations. 

‘You murderers !’ 

‘Give me my Rachel!’ 

“They are destroying our daughters as Pharaoh 
destroyed our sons.’ 

‘Give me back my children, and I’ll go back to 
Russia.’ 

“They are worse than the Russians, the poisoners !’ 

‘O God of Abraham, how shall I live without my 
Leah ?” 

On the other side of the bars the children — released 
for the dinner-interval — were clamouring equally, 
shouting, weeping, trying to get to their mothers. 
Some howled, with their sleeves rolled up to exhibit 
the upper arm. | 


214 THE RED MARK 


‘See,’ the woman cried, ‘the red marks! Oh, the 
poisoners !’ 

A light began to break upon Bloomah’s brain. 
Evidently the School Board had suddenly sent down 
compulsory vaccinators. 

‘I won’t die,’ moaned a plump golden-haired girl. 
‘I’m too young to die yet.’ 

‘My little lamb is dying!’ A woman near Bloomah, 
with auburn wisps showing under her black wig, 
wrung her hands. ‘I hear her talk — always, always 
about the red mark. Now they have given it her. 
She is poisoned — my little apple.’ 

‘Your little carrot is all right,’ said Bloomah testily. 
‘They’ve only vaccinated her.’ 

The woman caught at the only word she under- 
stood. ‘Vaccinate, vaccinate!’ she repeated. Then, 
relapsing into jargon and raising her hands heaven- 
ward: ‘A sudden death upon them all!’ 

Bloomah turned despairingly in search of a wigless 
woman. One stood at her elbow. 

‘Can’t you explain to her that the doctors mean no 
harm?’ Bloomah asked. 

‘Oh, don’t they, indeed? Just you read this!’ 
She flourished a handbill, English on one side, Yiddish 
on the other. | 

Bloomah read the English version, not without 
agitation : 

‘Mothers, look after your little ones! The School 


THE RED MARK 215 


Tyrants are plotting to inject filthy vaccine into their 
innocent veins. Keep them away rather than let them 
be poisoned to enrich the doctors.’ 

There followed statistics to appal even Bloomah. 
What wonder if the refugees from lands of persecution 
—lands in which anything might happen — believed 
they had fallen from the frying-pan into the fire; if 
the rumour that executioners with instruments had 
entered the school-buildings had run like wildfire 
through the quarter, inflaming Oriental imagination 
to semi-madness. 

While Bloomah was reading, a head-shawled woman 
fainted, and the din and frenzy grew. 

‘But I was vaccinated when a baby, and I’m all 
right,’ murmured Bloomah, half to reassure herself. 

‘My arm! I’m poisoned!’ And another pupil 
flew frantically towards the gate. 

The women outside replied with a dull roar of rage, 
and hurled themselves furiously against the lock. 

A window on the playground was raised with a sharp 
snap, and the head-mistress appeared, shouting alter- 
nately at the children and the parents; but she was 
neither heard nor understood, and a Polish crone shook 
an answering fist. 

‘You old maid — childless, pitiless !’ 

Shrill whistles sounded and resounded from every 
side, and soon a posse of eight policemen were battling 
with the besiegers, trying to push themselves between 


216 THE RED MARK 


them and the gate. A fat and genial officer worked 
his way past Bloomah, his truncheon ready for action. 

‘Don’t hurt the poor women,’ Bloomah pleaded. 
‘They think their children are being poisoned.’ 

‘I know, missie. What can you do with such 
greenhorns? Why don’t they stop in their own 
country? I’ve just been vaccinated myself, and it’s 
no joke to get my arm knocked about like this !’ 

‘Then show them the red marks, and that will quiet 
them.’ 

The policeman laughed. Asleeveless policeman! It 
would destroy all the dignity and prestige of the force. 

‘Then I’ll show them mine,’ said Bloomah reso- 
lutely. ‘Mine are old and not very showy, but per- 
haps they’ll do. Lift me up, please — I mean on your 
unvaccinated arm.’ 

Overcome by her earnestness the policeman hoisted 
her on his burly shoulder. The apparent arrest made 
a diversion; all eyes turned towards her. 

‘You Narronim!’ (fools), she shrieked, desperately 
mustering her scraps of Yiddish. ‘Your children are 
safe. Ich bin vaccinated. Look!’ She rolled up 
her sleeve. ‘Der policeman ist vaccinated. Look — 
if I tap him he winces. See!’ | 

‘Hold on, missie!’ The policeman grimaced. 

‘The King ist vaccinated,’ went on Bloomah, ‘and 
the Queen, and the Prince of Wales, yes, even the 
Teachers themselves. There are no devils inside 


THE RED MARK 217 


there. This paper ’—she held up the bill — ‘is lies 
and falsehood.’ She tore it into fragments. 

‘No; it is true as the Law of Moses,’ retorted a man 
in the mob. 

‘As the Law of Moses!’ echoed the women hoarsely. 

Bloomah had an inspiration. ‘The Law of Moses! 
Pooh! Don’t you know this is written by the Me- 
shummodim ?? 

The crowd looked blank, fell silent. If, indeed, the 
handbill was written by apostates, what could it hold 
but Satan’s lies? 

Bloomah profited by her moment of triumph. ‘Go 
home, you Narronim!’ she cried pityingly from her 
perch. And then, veering round towards the children 
behind the bars: ‘Shut up, you squalling sillies !’ she 
cried. ‘As for you, Golda Benjamin, I’m ashamed of 
you — a girl of your age! Put your sleeve down, cry- 
baby !’ 

Bloomah would have carried the day had not her 
harangue distracted the police from observing another 
party of rioters — women, assisted by husbands hastily 
summoned from stall and barrow, who were battering 
at a side gate. And at this very instant they burst it 
open, and with a great cry poured into the playground, 
screaming and searching for their progeny. 

The police darted round to the new battlefield, 
expecting an attack upon doors and windows, and 
Bloomah was hastily set down in the seething throng 


218 THE RED MARK 


and carried with it in the wake of the police, who could 
not prevent it flooding through the broken side gate. 

The large playground became a pandemonium of 
parents, children, police, and teachers, all shouting and 
gesticulating. But there was no riot. The law could 
not prevent mothers and fathers from snatching their 
offspring to their bosoms and making off overjoyed. 
The children who had not the luck to be kidnapped 
escaped of themselves, some panic-stricken, some - 
merely mischievous, and in a few minutes the school 
was empty. 


*K *K *k *k ** 


The School Management Committee sat formally 
to consider this unprecedented episode. It was decided 
to cancel the attendance for the day. Red marks, 
black marks — all fell into equality; the very ciphers 
were reduced to their native nothingness. ‘The school- - 
week was made to end on the Thursday. 

Next Monday morning saw Bloomah at her desk, 
happiest of a radiant sisterhood. On the wall shone 
_ the Banner. 





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Pia peARER OF BURDENS 


I 


WHEN her Fanny did at last marry, Natalya —as 
everybody called the old-clo’ woman — was not over- 
pleased at the bargain. Natalya had imagined before- 
hand that for a matronly daughter of twenty-three, 
almost past the marrying age, any wedding would be 
a profitable transaction. But when a husband actually 
presented himself, all the old dealer’s critical maternity 
was set a-bristle. Henry Elkman, she insisted, had 
not a true Jewish air. There was in the very cut of 
his clothes a subtle suggestion of going to the races. 

It was futile of Fanny to insist that Henry had never 
gone to the races, that his duties as bookkeeper of S. 
Cohn’s Clothing Emporium prevented him from going 
to the races, and that the cut of his clothes was intended 
to give tone to his own establishment. 

‘Ah, yes, he does not take thee to the races,’ she 
insisted in Yiddish. ‘But all these young men with 
check suits and flowers in their buttonholes bet and 
gamble and go to the bad, and their wives and children 
fall back on their old mothers for support.’ 

‘T shall not fall back on thee,’ Fanny retorted angrily. 

221 


222 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


‘And on whom else? A pretty daughter! Would 
you fall back on a stranger? Or perhaps you are 
thinking of the Board of Guardians!’ And a shudder 
of humiliation traversed her meagre frame. For at 
sixty she was already meagre, had already the appear- 
ance of the venerable grandmother she was now to 
become, save that her hair, being only a pious wig, 
remained rigidly young and black. Life had always 
gone hard with her. Since her husband’s death, when 
Fanny was a child, she had scraped together a scanty 
livelihood by selling odds and ends for a mite more 
than she gave for them. At the back doors of villas 
she haggled with miserly mistresses, gentlewoman and 
old-clo? woman linked by their common love of a 
bargain. 

Natalya would sniff contemptuously at the muddle 
of ancient finery on the floor and spurn it with her foot. 
‘How can I sell that?’ she would inquire. ‘Last time 
I gave you too much —I lost by you.’ And having 
wrung the price down to the lowest penny, she would 
pay it in clanking silver and copper from a grimy 
leather bag she wore hidden in her bosom; then, 
cramming the goods hastily into the maw of her sack, 
she would stagger joyously away. ‘The men’s garments 
she would modestly sell to a second-hand shop, but the 
women’s she cleaned and turned and transmogrified 
and sold in Petticoat Lane of a Sunday morning; 
scavenger, earth-worm, and alchemist, she was a 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 223 


humble agent in the great economic process by which 
cast-off clothes renew their youth and freshness, and 
having set in their original sphere rise endlessly in 
other social horizons. 

Of English she had, when she began, only enough 
to bargain with; but in one year of forced intercourse 
with English folk after her husband’s death she learnt 
more than in her quarter of a century of residence in the 
Spitalfields Ghetto. 

Fanny’s function had been to keep house and pre- 
pare the evening meal, but the old-clo’ woman’s objec- 
tion to her marriage was not selfish. She was quite 
ready to light her own fire and broil her own bloater 
after the day’s tramp. Fanny had, indeed, offered to 
have her live in the elegant two-roomed cottage near 
King’s Cross which Henry was furnishing. She could 
sleep in a convertible bureau in the parlour. But the 
old woman’s independent spirit and her mistrust of 
her son-in-law made her prefer the humble Ghetto 
garret. Against all reasoning, she continued to feel 
something antipathetic in Henry’s clothes and even in 
his occupation — perhaps it was really the subconscious 
antagonism of the old clo’ and the new, subtly symbolic 
of the old generation and the smart new world springing 
up to tread it down. Henry himself was secretly 
pleased at her refusal. In the first ardours of court- 
ship he had consented to swallow even the Polish crone 
who had strangely mothered his buxom British Fanny, 


224 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


but for his own part he had a responsive horror of 
old clo’; felt himself of the great English world of 
fashion and taste, intimately linked with the burly 
Britons whose girths he recorded from his high stool 
at his glass-environed desk, and in touch even with 
the lion comique, the details of whose cheap but stylish 
evening dress he entered with a proud flourish. 


II 


The years went by, and it looked as if the old woman’s 
instinct were awry. Henry did not go to the races, 
nor did Fanny have to fall back on her mother-in-law 
for the maintenance of herself and her two children, 
Becky and Joseph. On the contrary, she doubled her 
position in the social scale by taking a four-roomed 
house in the Holloway Road. Its proximity to the 
Clothing Emporium enabled Henry to come home for 
lunch. But, alas! Fanny was not allowed many years 
of enjoyment of these grandeurs and comforts. The 
one-roomed grave took her, leaving the four-roomed 
house incredibly large and empty. Even Natalya’s 
Ghetto garret, which Fanny had not shared for seven 
years, seemed céld and vacant to the poor mother. A 
new loneliness fell upon her, not mitigated by ever rarer 
visits to her grandchildren. Devoid of the link of her 
daughter, the house seemed immeasurably aloof from 
her in the social scale. Henry was frigid and the little 
ones went with marked reluctance to this stern, for- 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 225 


bidding old woman who questioned them as to their 
prayers and smelt of red-herrings. She ceased to go to 
the house. 

And then at last all her smouldering distrust of 
Henry Elkman found overwhelming justification. 

Before the year of mourning was up, before he was 
entitled to cease saying the Kaddish (funeral hymn) 
for her darling Fanny, the wretch, she heard, was 
married again. And married — villainy upon villainy, 
horror upon horror —to a Christian girl, a heathen 
abomination. Natalya was wrestling with her over- 
full sack when she got the news from a gossiping lady 
client, and she was boring holes for the passage of 
string to tie up its mouth. She turned the knife 
viciously, as if it were in Henry Elkman’s heart. 

She did not know the details of the piquant, tender 
courtship between him and the pretty assistant at the 
great drapery store that neighboured the Holloway 
Clothing Emporium, any more than she understood 
the gradual process which had sapped Henry’s instinct 
of racial isolation, or how he had passed from admira- 
tion of British ways into entire abandonment of Jewish. 
She was spared, too, the knowledge that latterly her 
own Fanny had slid with him into the facile paths of 
impiety; that they had ridden for a breath of country 
air on Sabbath afternoons. They had been considerate 
enough to hide that from her. To the old-clo’ woman’s 
crude mind, Henry Elkman existed as a monster of 

Q 


226 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


ready-made wickedness, and she believed even that 
he had been married in church and baptized, despite 
that her informant tried to console her with the assur- 
ance that the knot had been tied in a Registrar’s office. 

‘May he be cursed with the boils of Pharaoh!’ she 
cried in her picturesque jargon. ‘May his fine clothes 
fall from his flesh and his flesh from his bones! May 
my Fanny’s outraged soul plead against him at the 
Judgment Bar! And she—this heathen female — 
may her death be sudden!’ And she drew the ends of 
the string tightly together, as though round the female’s 
neck. 

‘Hush, you old witch!’ cried the gossip, revolted, 
‘and what would become of your own grandchildren ?’ 

‘They cannot be worse off than they are now, with 
a heathen in the house. All their Judaism will become 
corrupted. She may even baptize them. Oh, Father 
in Heaven!’ 

The thought weighed upon her. She pictured the 
innocent Becky and Joseph kissing crucifixes. At the 
best there would be no kosher food in the house any 
more. How could this stranger understand the mys- 
teries of purging meat, of separating meat-plates from 
butter-plates ? 

At last she could bear the weight no longer. She 
took the Elkman house in her rounds, and, bent under 
her sack, knocked at the familiar door. It was lunch- 
time, and unfamiliar culinary smells seemed wafted 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 227 


along the passage. Her morbid imagination scented 
bacon. The orthodox amulet on the doorpost did not 
comfort her; it had been left there, forgotten, a mute 
symbol of the Jewish past. 

A pleasant young woman with blue eyes and fresh- 
coloured cheeks opened the door. 

The blood surged to Natalya’s eyes, so that she could 
hardly see. 

‘Old clo’,’ she said mechanically. 

‘No, thank you,’ replied the young woman. Her 
voice was sweet, but it sounded to Natalya like the voice 
of Lilith, stealer of new-born children. Her rosy 
cheek seemed smeared with seductive paint. In the 
background glistened the dual crockery of the erst 
pious kitchen which the new-comer profaned. And 
between Natalya and it, between Natalya and her 
grandchildren, this alien girlish figure seemed to stand 
barrier-wise. She could not cross the threshold without 
explanations. 

‘Is Mr. Elkman at home?’ she asked. 

‘You know the name!’ said the young woman, a. 
little surprised. 

‘Yes, I have been here a good deal.’ The old 
woman’s sardonic accent was lost on the listener. 

‘I am sorry there is nothing this time,’ she re- 
plied. 

‘Not even a pair of old shoes?’ 

‘No.’ 


228 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


‘But the dead woman’s——? Are you, then, 
standing in them?’ 

The words were so fierce and unexpected, the crone’s 
eyes blazed so weirdly, that the new wife recoiled with 
a little shriek. 

‘Henry!’ she cried. 

Fork in hand, he darted in from the living-room, but 
came to a sudden standstill. 

‘What do you want here?’ he muttered. 

‘Fanny’s shoes !’ she cried. 

‘Who is it?’ his wife’s eyes demanded. 

‘A half-witted creature we deal with out of charity,’ 
he gestured back. And he put her inside the room-door, 
whispering, ‘Let me get rid of her.’ 

‘So, that’s your painted poppet,’ hissed his mother- 
in-law in Yiddish. : 

‘Painted ?’ he said angrily. ‘Madge painted? She’s 
just as natural as a rosy apple. She’s a country girl, 
and her mother was a lady.’ 

‘Her mother? Perhaps! But she? You see a 
glossy high hat marked sixteen and sixpence, and 
you think it’s new. But I know what it’s come 
from — a battered thing that has rolled in the gutter. 
Ah, how she could have bewitched you, when 
there are so many honest Jewesses without hus- 
bands !’ 

‘I am sorry she doesn’t please you; but, after all, 
it’s my business, and not yours.’ 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 229 


‘Not mine? After I gave you my Fanny, and she 
slaved for you and bore you children ?’ 

‘It’s just for her children that I had to marry.’ 

‘What? You had to marry a Christian for the sake 
of Fanny’s children? Oh, God forgive you!’ 

‘We are not in Poland now,’ he said sulkily. 

‘Ah, I always said you were a sinner in Israel. My 
Fanny has been taken for your sins. A black death 
on your bones.’ 

‘If you don’t leave off cursing, I shall call a 
policeman.’ 

‘Oh, lock me up, lock me up — instead of your shame. 
Let the whole world know that.’ 

‘Go away, then. You have no right to come here 
and frighten Madge—my wife. She is in delicate 
health, as it is.’ 

‘May she be an atonement for all of us! I have 
the right to come here as much as I please.’ 

“You have no right.’ 

‘IT have a right to the children. My blood is in their 
veins.’ 

‘You have no right. The children are their 
father’s.’ 

‘Yes, their Father’s in heaven,’ and she raised her 
hand like an ancient prophetess, while the other sup- 
ported her bag over her shoulder. ‘The children are 
the children of Israel, and they must carry forward the 
yoke of the Law.’ 


230 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


‘And what do you propose?’ he said, with a scornful 
sniff. 

‘Give me the children. I will elevate them in the 
fear of the Lord. You go your own godless way, free 
of burdens — you and your Christian poppet. You no 
longer belong to us. Give me the children, and [ll 
go away.’ 

He looked at her quizzingly. ‘You have been 
drinking, my good mother-in-law.’ 

‘Ay, the waters of affliction. Give me the chil- 
dren.’ 

‘But they won’t go with you. They love their step-. 
mother.’ 

‘Love that painted jade? They, with Jewish blood 
warm in their veins, with the memory of their mother 
warm in their hearts? Impossible!’ 

He opened the door gently. ‘Becky! Joe! No, 
don’t you come, Madge, darling. It’s all right. The 
old lady wants to say ‘‘Good-day”’ to the children.’ 

The two children tripped into the passage, with 
napkins tied round their chins, their mouths greasy, 
but the rest of their persons unfamiliarly speckless and 
tidy. They stood still at the sight of their grand- 
mother, so stern and frowning. Henry shut the door 
carefully. 

‘My lambs!’ Natalya cried, in her sweetest but 
harsh tones, ‘won’t you come and kiss me?’ 

Becky, a mature person of seven, advanced coura- 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 231 


geously and surrendered her cheek to her grand- 
mother. 

‘How are you, Granny?’ she said ceremoniously. 

‘And Joseph?’ said Natalya, not replying. ‘My 
heart and my crown, will he not come?’ 

The four-and-a-half year Joseph stood dubiously, 
with his fist in his mouth. 

‘Bring him to me, Becky. Tell him I want you and 
him to come and live with me.’ 

Becky shrugged her precocious shoulders. ‘He may. 
I won't,’ she said, laconically. 

‘Oh, Becky!’ said the grandmother. ‘Do you want 
to stay here and torture your poor mother ?’ 

Becky stared. ‘She’s dead,’ she said. 

‘Yes, but her soul lives and watches over you. Come, 
Joseph, apple of my eye, come with me.’ 

She beckoned enticingly, but the little boy, imagining 
the invitation was to enter her bag and be literally 
carried away therein, set up a terrific howl. Thereupon 
the pretty young woman emerged hastily, and the 
child, with a great sob of love and confidence, ran to 
her and nestled in her arms. 

‘Mamma, mamma,’ he cried. 

Henry looked at the old woman with a triumphant 
smile. 

Natalya went hot and cold. It was not only that 
little Joseph had gone to this creature. It was not 
even that he had accepted her maternity. It was this 


232 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


word ‘mamma’ that stung. The word summed up 
all the blasphemous foreignness of the new domesticity. 

‘Mamma’ was redolent of cold Christian houses in 
whose doorways the old-clo? woman sometimes heard 
it. Fanny had been ‘mother’ —the dear, homely, 
Jewish ‘mother.’ This ‘mamma,’ taught to the 
orphans, was like the haughty parade of Christian 
elegance across her grave. 

‘When mamma’s shoes are to be sold, don’t forget 
me,’ Natalya hissed. ‘I’ll give you the best price in 
the market.’ 

Henry shuddered, but replied, half pushing her 
outside: ‘Certainly, certainly. Good-afternoon.’ 

‘T’ll buy them at your own price —ah, I see them 
coming, coming into my bag.’ 

The door closed on her grotesque sibylline intensity, 
and Henry clasped his wife tremblingly to his bosom 
and pressed a long kiss upon her fragrant cherry 
lips. 

Later on he explained that the crazy old-clo’ woman 
was known to the children, as to everyone in the neigh- 
bourhood, as ‘Granny.’ 


III 


In the bearing of her first child the second Mrs. 
Elkman died. The rosy face became a white angelic 
mask, the dainty figure lay in statuesque severity, and 
a screaming, bald-headed atom of humanity was the 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 233 


compensation for this silence. Henry Elkman was 
overwhelmed by grief and superstition. 

‘For three things women die in childbirth,’ kept 
humming in his brain from his ancient Hebrew lore. 
He did not remember what they were, except that one 
was the omission of the wife to throw into the fire the 
lump of dough from the Sabbath bread. But these 
neglects could not be visited on a Christian, he thought 
dully. The only distraction of his grief was the infant’s 
pressing demand on his attention. 

It was some days before the news penetrated to the 
old woman. 

‘It is his punishment,’ she said with solemn satis- 
faction. ‘Now my Fanny’s spirit will rest.’ 

But she did not gloat over the decree of the God of 
Israel as she had imagined beforehand, nor did she call 
for the dead woman’s old clo’. She was simply con- 
tent —an unrighteous universe had been set straight 
again like a mended watch. But she did call, without 
her bag, to inquire if she could be of service in this 
tragic crisis. 

‘Out of my sight, you and your evil eye!’ cried Henry 
as he banged the door in her face. 

Natalya burst into tears, torn by a chaos of emotions. 
So she was still to be shut out. 


234 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


IV 


The next news that leaked into Natalya’s wizened 
ear was as startling at Madge’s death. Henry had 
married again. Doubtless with the same pretext of 
the children’s needs he had taken unto himself a third 
wife, and again without the decencies of adequate 
delay. And this wife was a Jewess, as of yore. Henry 
had reverted matrimonially to the fold. Was it con- 
science, was it terror? Nobody knew. But every- 
body knew that the third Mrs. Elkman was a bouncing 
beauty of a good orthodox stock, that she brought 
with her fifty pounds in cash, besides bedding and 
house-linen accumulated by her parents without pre- 
vision that she would marry an old hand, already 
provided with these household elements. 

The old-clo’ woman’s emotions were more mingled 
than ever. She felt vaguely that the Jewish minister 
should not so unquestioningly have accorded the scamp 
the privileges of the hymeneal canopy. Some lustral 
rite seemed necessary to purify him of his Christian 
conjunction. And the memory of Fanny was still 
outraged by this burying of her, so to speak, under 
layers of successive wives. On the other hand, the 
children would revert to Judaism, and they would have 
a Jewish mother, not a mamma, to care for them and 
to love them. The thought consoled her for being 
shut out of their lives, as she felt she must have been, 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 235 


even had Henry been friendlier. This third wife had 
alienated her from the household, had made her kin- 
ship practically remote. She had sunk to a sort of 
third cousin, or a mother-in-law twice removed. 

The days went on, and again the Elkman household 
occupied the gossips, and news of it — second-hand, 
like everything that came to her — was picked up by 
Natalya on her rounds. Henry’s third wife was, it 
transpired, a melancholy failure. Her temper was 
frightful, she beat her stepchildren, and — worst and 
rarest sin in the Jewish housewife — she drank. Henry 
was said to be in despair. 

‘Nebbich, the poor little children!’ cried Natalya, 
horrified. Her brain began plotting how to interfere, 
but she could find no way. 

The weeks passed, with gathering rumours of the 
iniquities of the third Mrs. Elkman, and then at last 
came the thunder-clap — Henry had disappeared with- 
out leaving a trace. The wicked wife and the innocent 
brats had the four-roomed home to themselves. The 
Clothing Emporium knew him no more. Some whis- 
pered suicide, others America. Benjamin Beckenstein, 
the cutter of the Emporium, who favoured the latter 
hypothesis, reported a significant saying: ‘I have lived 
with two angels; I can’t live with a demon.’ 

‘Ah, at last he sees my Fanny was an angel,’ said 
Natalya, neglecting to draw the deduction anent 
America, and passing over the other angel. And she 


236 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


embroidered the theme. How indeed could a man 
who had known the blessing of a sober, God-fearing 
wife endure a drunkard and a child-beater? ‘No 
wonder he killed himself!’ 

The gossips pointed out that the saying implied 
flight rather than suicide. 

‘You are right!’ Natalya admitted illogically. 
‘Just what a coward and blackguard like that would 
do — leave the children at the mercy of the woman he 
couldn’t face himself. How in Heaven’s name will 
they live?’ 

‘Oh, her father, the furrier, will have to look after 
them,’ the gossips assured her. ‘He gave her good 
money, you know, fifty pounds and the bedding. 
Ah, trust Elkman for that. He knew he wasn’t leaving 
the children to starve.’ 

‘I don’t know so much,’ said the old woman, shaking 
her bewigged head. 

What was to be done? Suppose the furrier refused 
the burden. But Henry’s flight, she felt, had removed 
her even farther from the Elkman household. If she 
went to spy out the land, she would now have to face 
the virago in possession. But no! on second thoughts 
it was this other woman whom Henry’s flight had 
changed to a stranger. What had the wretch to do 
with the children? She was a mere intruder in the 
house. Out with her, or at least out with the children. 

Yes, she would go boldly there and demand them. 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 237 


‘Poor Becky! Poor Joseph!’ her heart wailed. 
“You to be beaten and neglected after having known 
the love of a mother.’ ‘True, it would not be easy to 
support them. But a little more haggling, a little 
more tramping, a little more mending, and a little less 
gorging and gormandising! They would be at school 
during the day, so would not interfere with her rounds, 
and in the evening she could have them with her as 
she sat refurbishing the purchases of the day. Ah, 
what a blessed release from the burden of loneliness, 
heavier than the heaviest sack! It was well worth 
the price. And then at bedtime she would say the 
Hebrew night-prayer with them and tuck them up, 
just as she had once done with her Fanny. 

But how if the woman refused to yield them up — 
as Natalya could fancy her refusing —out of sheer 
temper and devilry? What if, amply subsidized by her 
well-to-do parent, she wished to keep the little ones by 
her and revenge upon them their father’s desertion, or 
hold them hostages for his return? Why, then, Na- 
talya would use cunning —ay, and force too —she 
would even kidnap them. Once in their grandmother’s 
hands, the law would see to it that they did not go 
back to this stranger, this bibulous brute, whose rights 
over them were nil. 

It was while buying up on a Sunday afternoon the 
sloughed vestments of a Jewish family in Holloway 
that her resolve came to a head. A cab would be 


238 © THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


necessary to carry her goods to her distant garret. 
What an opportunity for carrying off the children at 
the same time! The house was actually on her home- 
ward route. The economy of it tickled her, made her 
overestimate the chances of capture. As she packed 
the motley, far-spreading heap into the symmetry of 
her sack, pressing and squeezing the clothes incredibly 
tighter and tighter till it seemed a magic sack that 
could swallow up even the Holloway Clothing Em- 
porium, Natalya’s brain revolved feverish fancy- 
pictures of the coming adventure. 

Leaving the bag in the basement passage, she ran to 
fetch a cab. Usually the hiring of the vehicle occupied 
Natalya half an hour. She would harangue the 
Christian cabmen on the rank, pleading her poverty, 
and begging to be conveyed with her goods for a 
ridiculous sum. At first none of them would take 
notice of the old Jewish crone, but would read their 
papers in contemptuous indifference. But gradually, 
as they remained idly on the rank, the endless stream 
of persuasion would begin to percolate, and at last 
one would relent, half out of pity, and would end by 
bearing the sack gratuitously on his shoulder from the 
house to his cab. Often there were two sacks, quite 
filling the interior of a four-wheeler, and then 
Natalya would ride triumphantly beside her cabby 
on the box, the two already the best of friends. 
Things went ill if Natalya did not end by trading off 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 239 


something in the sacks against the fare—at a new 
profit. 

But to-day she was too excited to strike more than a 
mediocre bargain. The cumbrous sack was hoisted 
into the cab. Natalya sprang in beside it, and in a 
resolute voice bade the driver draw up for a moment 
at the Elkman home. 


V 


The unwonted phenomenon of a cab brought Becky 
to the door ere her grandmother could jump out. She 
was still under ten, but prematurely developed in body 
as in mind. ‘There was something unintentionally 
insolent in her precocity, in her habitual treatment 
of adults as equals; but now her face changed almost 
to a child’s, and with a glad tearful cry of ‘Oh, grand- 
mother !’ she sprang into the old woman’s arms. 

It was the compensation for little Joseph’s ‘mamma.’ 
Tears ran down the old woman’s cheeks as she hugged 
the strayed lamb to her breast. 

A petulant infantile wail came from within, but 
neither noted it. 

‘Where is your stepmother, my poor angel?’ Na- 
talya asked in a half whisper. 

Becky’s forehead gloomed in an ugly frown. Her 
face became a woman’s again. ‘One o’clock the 
public-houses open on Sundays,’ she snorted. 

‘Oh, my God!’ cried Natalya, forgetting that the 


240 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


circumstance was favouring her project. ‘A Jewish 
woman! You don’t mean to say that she drinks in 
public-houses ?’ 

‘You don’t suppose I would let her drink here,’ said 
Becky. ‘We have nice scenes, I can tell you. The 
only consolation is she’s better-tempered when she’s 
quite drunk.’ 

The infant’s wail rang out more clamorously. 

‘Hush, you little beast!’ Becky ejaculated, but 
she moved mechanically within, and her grandmother 
followed her. 

All the ancient grandeur of the sitting-room seemed 
overclouded with shabbiness and _ untidiness. To 
Natalya everything looked and smelt like the things 
in her bag. And there in a stuffy cradle a baby wrinkled 
its red face with shrieking. 

Becky had bent over it, and was soothing it ere its 
existence penetrated at all to the old woman’s pre- 
occupied brain. Its pipings had been like an un- 
heeded wail of wind round some centre of tragic ex- 
perience. Even when she realized the child’s existence 
her brain groped for some seconds in search of its 
identity. 

Ah, the baby whose birth had cost that painted 
poppet’s life! So it still lived and howled in unwelcome 
reminder and perpetuation of that brief but shameful 
episode. ‘Grow dumb like your mother,’ she mur- 
mured resentfully. What a bequest of misery Henry 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 241 


Elkman had left behind him! Ah, how right she had 
been to suspect him from the very first. | 

‘But where is my little Joseph?’ she said aloud. 

‘He’s playing somewhere in the street.’ 

‘Ach, mein Gott! Playing, when he ought to be 
weeping like this child of shame. Go and fetch him 
at once!’ 

“What do you want him for?’ 

‘I am going to take you both away —out of this 
misery. You’d like to come and live with me —eh, 
my lamb?’ 

“Rather — anything’s better than this.’ 

Natalya caught her to her breast again. 

‘Go and fetch my Joseph! But quick, quick, before 
the public-house woman comes back!’ 

Becky flew out, and Natalya sank into a chair, 
breathless with emotion and fatigue. The baby in 
the cradle beside her howled more vigorously, and 
automatically her foot sought the rocker, and she 
heard herself singing: 

‘Sleep, little baby, sleep, 
Thy father shall be a Rabbi: 


Thy mother shall bring thee almonds; 
Blessings on thy little head.’ 


As the howling diminished, she realized with a shock 
that she was rocking this misbegotten infant — nay, 
singing to it a Jewish cradle-song full of inappropriate 


phrases. She withdrew her foot as though the rocker 
R 


242 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


had grown suddenly red-hot. The yells broke out 
with fresh vehemence, and she angrily restored her 
foot to its old place. ‘Nw, nu,’ she cried, rocking 
violently, ‘go to sleep.’ 

She stole a glance at it, when it grew stiller, and saw 
that the teat of its feeding-bottle was out of its mouth. 
‘There, there — suck!’ she said, readjusting it. The 
baby opened its eyes and shot a smile at her, a won- 
derful, trustful smile from great blue eyes. Natalya 
trembled; those were the blue eyes that had supplanted 
the memory of Fanny’s dark orbs, and the lips now 
sucking contentedly were the cherry lips of the painted 
poppet. 

‘Nebbich; the poor, deserted little orphan,’ she 
apologized to herself. ‘And this is how the new 
Jewish wife does her duty to her stepchildren. She 
might as well have been a Christian.’ Then a remem- 
brance that the Christian woman had seemingly been 
an unimpeachable stepmother confused her thoughts 
further. And while she was groping among them 
Becky returned, haling in Joseph, who in his turn haled 
in a kite with a long tail. | 

The boy, now a sturdy lad of seven, did not palpitate 
towards his grandmother with Becky’s eagerness. 
Probably he felt the domestic position less. But he 
surrendered himself to her long hug. ‘Did she beat 
him,’ she murmured soothingly, ‘beat my own little 
Joseph?’ 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 243 


‘Don’t waste time, granny,’ Becky broke in petu- 
lantly, ‘if we are going.’ 

‘No, my dear. We'll go at once.’ And, releasing 
the boy, Natalya partly undid the lower buttons of his 
waistcoat. 

“You wear no four-corner fringes!’ she exclaimed 
tragically. ‘She neglects even to see to that. Ah, 
it will be a good deed to carry you from this godless 
home.’ 

‘But I don’t want to go with you,’ he said sullenly, 
reminded of past inquisitorial worryings about prayers. 

‘You little fool!’ said Becky. ‘You are going — 
and in that cab.’ 

‘In that cab?’ he cried joyfully. 

“Yes, my apple. And you will never be beaten again.’ 

‘Oh, she don’t hurt!’ he said contemptuously. 
‘She hasn’t even got a cane — like at school.’ 

‘But shan’t we take our things?’ said Becky. 

‘No, only the things you stand in. They shan’t 
have any excuse for taking you back. IT’ll find you 
plenty of clothes, as good as new.’ 

‘And little Daisy?’ 

‘Oh, is it a girl? Your stepmother will look after 
that. She can’t complain of one burden.’ 

She hustled the children into the cab, where, with the 
sack and herself, they made a tightly-packed quartette. 

‘I say, I didn’t bargain for extras inside,’ grumbled 
the cabman. 


244 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


‘You can’t reckon these children,’ said Natalya, with 
confused legal recollections; ‘they’re both under seven.’ 

The cabman started. Becky stared out of the window. 
‘I wonder if we’ll pass Mrs. Elkman,’ she said, amused. 
Joseph busied himself with disentangling the tails of his 
kite. 

But Natalya was too absorbed to notice their in- 
difference to her. That poor little Daisy! The image 
of the baby swam vividly before her. What a terrible 
fate to be left in the hands of the public-house woman! 
Who knew what would happen to it? What if, in 
her drunken fury at the absence of Becky and Joseph, 
she did it a mischief? At the best the besotted creature 
would not take cordially to the task of bringing it up. 
It was no child of hers — had not even the appeal of pure 
Jewish blood. And there it lay, smiling, with its 
beautiful blue eyes. It had smiled trustfully on herself, 
not knowing she was to leave it to its fate. And now 
it was crying; she heard it crying above the rattle of the 
cab. But how could she charge herself with it — she, 
with her daily rounds to make? The other children 
were grown up, passed the day at school. No, it was 
impossible. And the child’s cry went on in her imagina- 
tion louder and louder. 

She put her head out of the window. ‘Turn back! 
Turn back! I’ve forgotten something.’ 

The cabman swore. ‘D’ye think you’ve taken me 
by the week?’ 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 245 


“Threepence extra. Drive back.’ 

The cab turned round, the innocent horse got a 
stinging flip of the whip, and set off briskly. 

‘What have you forgotten, grandmother?’ said 
Becky. ‘It’s very careless of you.’ 

The cab stopped at the door. Natalya looked round 
nervously, sprang out, and then uttered a cry of despair. 

‘Ach, we shut the door!’ And the inaccessible 
baby took on a tenfold desirability. 

‘It’s all right,’ said Becky. ‘Just turn the handle.’ 
Natalya obeyed and ran in. ‘There was the baby, 
not crying, but sleeping peacefully. Natalya snatched 
it up frenziedly, and hurried the fresh-squalling bundle 
into the cab. 

“Taking Daisy?’ cried Becky. ‘But she isn’t yours!’ 

Natalya shut the cab-door with a silencing bang, 
and the vehicle turned again Ghettowards. 


VI 


The fact that Natalya had taken possession of the 
children could not be kept a secret, but the stepmother’s 
family made no effort to regain them, and, indeed, the 
woman herself shortly went the way of all Henry 
Elkman’s wives, though whether she, like the rest, 
had a successor, is unknown. 

The sudden change from a lone old lady to a mater- 
familias was not, however, so charming as Natalya had 
imagined. ‘The cost of putting Daisy out to nurse was 


246 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


a terrible tax, but this was nothing compared to the 
tax on her temper levied by her legitimate grand- 
children, who began to grumble on the first night at 
the poverty and pokiness of the garret, and were 
thenceforward never without a lament for the good 
old times. They had, indeed, been thoroughly spoilt 
by the father and the irregular ménage. The Christian 
wife’s influence had been refining but too temporary. 
It had been only long enough to wean Joseph from the 
religious burdens indoctrinated by Fanny, and thus to 
add to the grandmother’s difficulties in coaxing him 
back to the yoke of piety. | 

The only sweet in Natalya’s cup turned out to be 
the love of little Daisy, who grew ever more beautiful, 
gracious, and winning. 

Natalya had never known so lovable a child. All 
Daisy did seemed to her perfect. For instant obe- 
dience and instant comprehension she declared her 
matchless. 

One day, when Daisy was three, the child told the 
grandmother that in her momentary absence Becky 
had pulled Joseph’s hair. 

‘Hush! You mustn’t tell tales,’ Natalya said re- 
provingly. 

‘Becky did not pull Joey’s hair,’ Daisy corrected 
herself instantly. 

Much to the disgust of Becky, who wished to out- 
grow the Ghetto, even while she unconsciously mani- 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 247 


fested its worst heritages, Daisy picked up the Yiddish 
words and phrases, which, in spite of Becky’s remon- 
strances, Natalya was too old to give up. This was 
not the only subject of dispute between Becky and 
the grandmother, whom she roundly accused of favour- 
itism of Daisy, and she had not reached fifteen when, 
with an independence otherwise praiseworthy, she set 
up for herself on her earnings in the fur establish- 
ment of her second stepmother’s father, lodging with 
a family who, she said, bored her less than her grand- 
mother. 

In another year or so, freed from the compulsory 
education of the School Board, Joseph joined her. 
And thus, by the unforeseen turns of Fortune’s wheel, 
the old-clo’ woman of seventy-five was left alone with 
the child of seven. 

But this child was compensation for all she had 
undergone, for all the years of trudging and grubbing 
and patching and turning. Daisy threaded her needle 
for her at night when her keen eyes began to fail, and 
while she made the old clo’ into new, Daisy read aloud 
her English story-books. Natalya took an absorbing 
interest in these nursery tales, heard for the first time, 
in her second childhood, ‘Jack the Giant-killer,’ 
‘Aladdin,’ ‘ Cinderella,’ they were all delightful novelties. 
The favourite story of both was ‘Little Red Riding- 
Hood,’ with its refrain of ‘Grandmother, what large 
eyes you’ve got!’ That could be said with pointed 


248 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


fun; it seemed to be written especially for them. 
Often Daisy would look up suddenly and say: ‘ Grand- 
mother, what a large mouth you’ve got!’ ‘All the better 
to bite you with,’ grandmother would reply. And then 
there would be hugs and kisses. 

But Friday night was the great night, the one night 
of the week on which Natalya could be stopped from 
working. Only religion was strong enough to achieve 
that. The two Sabbath candles in the copper candle- 
sticks stood on the white tablecloth, and were lighted 
as soon as the welcome dusk announced the advent of 
the holy day, and they shed their pious illumination 
on her dish of fish and the ritually-twisted loaves. 
And after supper Natalya would sing the Hebrew 
grace at much leisurely length and with great unction. 
Then she would tell stories of her youth in Poland — 
comic tales mixed with tales of oppression and the 
memories of ancient wrong. And Daisy would weep 
and laugh and thrill. The fusion of races had indeed 
made her sensitive and intelligent beyond the common, 
and Natalya was not unjustified in planning out for 
her some illustrious future. 

But after eighteen months of this delightful life 
Natalya’s wonderful vitality began slowly to collapse. 
She earned less and less, and, amid her gratitude to 
God for having relieved her of the burden of Becky 
and Joseph, a secret fear entered her heart. Would 
she be taken away before Daisy became self-support- 


Cf. HE BEARER OF BURDENS 249 


ing? Nay, would she even be able to endure the 
burden till the end? What made things worse was 
that, owing to the increase of immigrants, her landlord 
now exacted an extra shilling a week for rent. When 
Daisy was asleep the old woman hung over the bed, 
praying for life, for strength. 

It was a sultry summer, making the trudge from 
_ door to door, under the ever-swelling sack, almost 
intolerable. And a little thing occurred to bring home 
cruelly to Natalya the decline of all her resources, 
physical and financial. The children’s country holiday 
was in the air at Daisy’s Board School, throwing an 
aroma and a magic light over the droning class-room. 
Daisy was to go, was to have a fortnight with a cottager 
in Kent; but towards the expenses the child’s parent 
or guardian was expected to contribute four shillings. 
Daisy might have gone free had she pleaded absolute 
poverty, but that would have meant investigation. 
From such humiliation Natalya shrank. She shrank 
even more from frightening the poor child by uncover- 
ing the skeleton of poverty. Most of all she shrank 
from depriving Daisy of all the rural delights on which 
the child’s mind dwelt in fascinated anticipation. 
Natalya did not think much of the country herself, 
having been born in a poor Polish village, amid huts 
and pigs, but she would not disillusion Daisy. 

By miles of extra trudging in the heat, and miracles 
of bargaining with bewildered housewives, Natalya 


250 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


raised the four shillings, and the unconscious Daisy 
glided off in the happy, noisy train, while on the plat- 
form Natalya waved her coloured handkerchief wet 
with tears. | 

That first night without the little sunshiny presence 
was terrible for the old-clo’ woman. ‘The last prop 
against decay and collapse seemed removed. But the 
next day a joyous postcard came from Daisy, which 
the greengrocer downstairs read to Natalya, and she 
was able to take up her sack again and go forth into 
the sweltering streets. 

In the second week the child wrote a letter, saying 
that she had found a particular friend in an old lady, 
very kind and rich, who took her for drives in a chaise, 
and asked her many questions. This old lady seemed 
to have taken a fancy to her from the moment she saw 
her playing outside the cottage. 

‘Perhaps God has sent her to look after the child 
when I am gone,’ thought Natalya, for the task of 
going down and up the stairs to get this letter read 
made her feel as if she would never go up and down 
them again. 

Beaten at last, she took to her bed. Her next- 
room neighbour, the cobbler’s wife, tended her and 
sent for the ‘penny doctor.’ But she would not have 
word written to Daisy or her holiday cut short. On 
the day Daisy was to come back she insisted, despite 
all advice and warning, in being up and dressed. 


THE BEARER OF BURDENS 251 


She sent everybody away, and lay on her bed till she 
heard Daisy’s footsteps, then she started to her feet, and 
drew herself up in pretentious good health. But the 
sound of other footsteps, and the entry of a spectacled, 
silver-haired old gentlewoman with the child, spoilt 
her intended hug. Daisy’s new friend had passed 
from her memory, and she stared pathetically at the 
strange lady and the sunburnt child. 

‘Oh, grandmother, what great eyes you’ve got!’ 
And Daisy ran laughingly towards her. 

The usual repartee was wanting. 

‘And the room is not tidied up,’ Natalya said re- 
proachfully, and began dusting a chair for the visitor. 
But the old lady waved it aside. 

‘I have come to thank you for all you have done for 
my grandchild.’ 

‘Your grandchild?’ Natalya fell back on the bed. 

‘Yes. I have had inquiries made — it is quite cer- 
tain. Daisy was even called after me. I am glad of 
that, at least.’ Her voice faltered. 

Natalya sat as bolt upright as years of bending under 
sacks would allow. 

‘And you have come to take her from me!’ she 
shrieked. 

Already Daisy’s new ruddiness seemed to her the 
sign of life that belonged elsewhere. 

‘No, no, do not be alarmed. I have suffered enough 
from my selfishness. It was my bad temper drove 


252 THE BEARER OF BURDENS 


my daughter from me.’ She bowed her silver head 
till her form seemed as bent as Natalya’s. ‘What can 
I do to repair —to atone? Will you not come and 
live with me in the country, and let me care for you? 
I am not rich, but I can offer you every comfort.’ 

Natalya shook her head. ‘I am a Jewess. I could 
not eat with you.’ 

‘That’s just what J told her, grandmother,’ added 
Daisy eagerly. 

‘Then the child must remain with you at my expense,’ 
said the old lady. 

‘But if she likes the country so 
Natalya. 

‘I like you better, grandmother.’ And Daisy laid 
her ruddied cheek to the withered cheek, which grew 
wet with ecstasy. 

‘She calls you ‘“‘grandmother,” not me,’ said the 
old gentlewoman with a sob. 

‘Yes, and I wished her mother dead. God forgive 
me!’ 

Natalya burst into a passion of tears and rocked to 
and fro, holding Daisy tightly to her faintly pulsing 
heart. 

‘What did you say?’ Daisy’s grandmother flamed 
and blazed with her ancient anger. ‘You wished my 
Madge dead ?’ 

Natalya nodded her head. Her arms unloosed their 
hold of Daisy. ‘Dead, dead, dead,’ she repeated in a 


? murmured 





THE BEARER OF BURDENS 253 


strange, crooning voice. Gradually a vacant look crept 
over her face, and she fell back again on the bed. 
She looked suddenly very old, despite her glossy black 
wig. 

‘She is ill!’ Daisy shrieked. 

The cobbler’s wife ran in and helped to put her back 
between the sheets, and described volubly her obstinacy 
in leaving her bed. Natalya lived till near noon of 
the next day, and Daisy’s real grandmother was with 
her still at the end, side by side with the Jewish death- 
watcher. 

About eleven in the morning Natalya said: ‘Light 
the candles, Daisy, the Sabbath is coming in.’ Daisy 
spread a white tablecloth on the old wooden table, 
placed the copper candlesticks upon it, drew it to the 
bedside, and lighted the candles. They burned with 
curious unreality in the full August sunshine. 

A holy peace overspread the old-clo’? woman’s face. 
Her dried-up lips mumbled the Hebrew prayer, wel- 
coming the Sabbath eve. Gradually they grew rigid 
in death. 

‘Daisy,’ said her grandmother, ‘say the text I taught 
you.’ 

‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
laden,”’’ sobbed the child obediently, ‘‘‘and I will 
give you rest.’”’ 








aL ATS 
Pa Om 


Masih} 

1 ‘ eer is 
; SOEUR alt t 
Uwe etdahe AR yen 





yh fh j 
WATER et WKAR ALT Ath 
AYA Tite pete VEN 
wane eo) 
4a 


‘ 4 LAY 


arin) 
wy ts 


a a 
Via 








NTeea dil 


Dae 
Ty ae 








mabe LUEPT MENSCH 


I 


LEOPOLD BARSTEIN, the sculptor, was sitting in 
his lonesome studio, brooding blackly over his dead 
illusions, when the postman brought him a letter in a 
large, straggling, unknown hand. It began ‘Angel of 
God!’ 

He laughed bitterly. ‘Just when I am at my most 
diabolical!’ He did not at first read the letter, divining 
in it one of the many begging-letters which were the 
aftermath of his East-End Zionist period. But he 
turned over the page to see the name of the Orient- 
ally effusive scribe. It was ‘Nehemiah Silvermann, 
Dentist and Restaurateur.’ His laughter changed 
to a more genial note; his sense of humour was still 
saving. ‘The figure of the restaurateur-dentist sprang to 
his imagination in marble on a pedestal. In one hand 
the figure held a cornucopia, in the other a pair of 
pincers. He read the letter. 


‘3A, THE MINorRIESs, E. 
‘ANGEL OF GoD, 
‘I have the honour now to ask Your very kind 
humane merciful cordial nobility to assist me by Your 
s 257 


258 THE LUFTMENSCH 


clement philanthropical liberal relief in my very hard 
troublesome sorrows and worries, on which I suffer 
violently. I lost all my fortune, and I am ruined by 
Russia. I am here at present without means and 
dental practice, and my restaurant is impeded with 
lack of a few frivolous pounds. I do not know really 
what to do in my actual very disgraceful mischief. I 
heard the people saying Your propitious magnanimous 
beneficent charities are everywhere exceedingly well 
renowned and considerably gracious. Thus I solicit 
and supplicate Your good very kind genteel clement 
humanity by my very humble quite instant request 
to support me by Your merciful aid, and please to 
respond me as soon as possible according to Your 
generous very philanthropy in my urgent extreme 
immense difficulty. 
Your obedient servant respectfully, 
‘ NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN, 
‘Dentist and Restaurateur.’ 


Such a flood of language carried away the last rem- 
nants of Barstein’s melancholia; he saw his imagined 
statue showering adjectives from its cornucopia. ‘It 
is the cry of a dictionary in distress!’ he murmured, 
re-reading the letter with unction. 

It pleased his humour to reply in the baldest language. 
He asked for details of Silvermann’s circumstances 
and sorrows. Had he applied to the Russo-Jewish 


THE LUFTMENSCH 259 


Fund, which existed to help such refugees from per- 
secution? Did he know Jacobs, the dentist of the 
neighbouring Mansel Place? 

Jacobs had been one of Barstein’s fellow-councillors 
in Zionism, a pragmatic inexhaustible debater in the 
small back room, and the voluble little man now loomed 
suddenly large as a possible authority upon his brother- 
dentist. 

By return of post a second eruption descended upon 
the studio from the ‘dictionary in distress.’ 


‘3A, THE MINORIES, E. 


‘Most HONOURABLE AND ANGELICAL Mr. LEOPOLD 
BARSTEIN, 


‘I have the honour now to thank You for Your 
kind answer of my letter. I did not succeed here by 
my vital experience in the last of ten years. I got my 
livelihood a certain time by my dental practice so long 
there was not a hard violent competition, then I had 
never any efficacious relief, protection, then I have no 
relation, then we and the time are changeable too, 
then without money is impossible to perform any 
matter, if I had at present in my grieved desperate 
position £4 for my restaurant, then I were rescued, I 
do not earn anything, and I must despond at last, I 
perish here, in Russia I was ruined, please to aid me 
in Your merciful humanity by something, if I had 
£15 I could start off from here to go somewhere to 


260 THE LUFTMENSCH 


look for my daily bread, and if I had £30 so I shall 
go to Jerusalem because I am convinced by my bitter 
and sour troubles and shocking tribulations here is 
nothing to do any more for me. I have not been in 
the Russo- Jewish fund and do not know it where it is, 
and if it is in the Jewish shelter of Leman Street so 
I have no protection, no introduction, no reeommenda- 
tion for it. Poverty has very seldom a few clement 
humane good people and little friends. The people 
say Jacobs the dentist of Mansel Place is not a good 
man, and so it is I tried it for he makes the impossible 
competition. I ask Your good genteel cordial nobility 
according to the universal good reputation of Your 
gracious goodness to reply me quick by some help now. 
‘Your obedient Servant respectfully, 
‘NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN, 
‘Dentist and Restaurateur.’ 


This letter threw a new but not reassuring light upon 
the situation. Instead of being a victim of the Rus- 
sian troubles, a recent refugee from massacre and 
robbery, Nehemiah had already existed in London 
for ten years, and although he might originally have 
been ruined by Russia, he had survived his ruin by a 
decade. His ideas of his future seemed as hazy as 
his past. Four pounds would be a very present help; 
he could continue his London career. With fifteen 
pounds he was ready to start off anywhither. With 


THE LUFTMENSCH 261 


thirty pounds he would end all his troubles in Jeru- 
salem. Such nebulousness appeared to necessitate 
a personal visit, and the next day, finding himself in 
bad form, Barstein angrily bashed in a clay visage, 
clapped on his hat, and repaired to the Minories. 
But he looked in vain for either a dentist or a restaurant 
at No. 3A. It appeared a humble corner residence, 
trying to edge itself into the important street. At 
last, after wandering uncertainly up and down, he 
knocked at the shabby door. A frowsy woman with 
long earrings opened it staring, and said that the Silver- 
manns occupied two rooms on her second floor. 

‘What!’ cried Barstein. ‘Is he married?’ 

‘I should hope so,’ replied the landlady severely. 
‘He has eleven children at least.’ 

Barstein mounted the narrow carpetless stairs, and 
was received by Mrs. Silvermann and her brood with 
much consternation and ceremony. The family filled 
the whole front room and overflowed into the back, 
which appeared to be a sort of kitchen, for Mrs. Silver- 
mann had rushed thence with tucked-up sleeves, and 
sounds of frying still proceeded from it. But Mr. 
Silvermann was not at home, the small, faded, bewigged 
creature told him apologetically. Barstein looked 
curiously round the room, half expecting indications 
of dentistry or dining. But he saw only a minimum 
of broken-down furniture, bottomless cane chairs, a 
wooden table and a cracked mirror, a hanging shelf 


262 THE LUFTMENSCH 


heaped with ragged books, and a standing cupboard 
which obviously turned into a bedstead at night for 
half the family. But of a dentist’s chair there was not 
even the ruins. His eyes wandered over the broken- 
backed books —some were indeed ‘dictionaries in 
distress.’ He noted a Russo-German and a German- 
English. Then the sounds of frying penetrated more 
keenly to his brain. 

‘You are the cook of the restaurant?’ he inquired. 

‘Restaurant !’ echoed the woman resentfully. ‘Have 
I not enough cooking to do for my own family? And 
where shall I find money to keep a restaurant ?’ 

‘Your husband said > murmured Barstein, as 





in guilty confusion. 

A squalling from the overflow offspring in the kitchen 
drew off the mother for a moment, leaving him sur- 
rounded by an open-eyed juvenile mob. From the 
rear he heard smacks, loud whispers and whimperings. 
Then the poor woman reappeared, bearing what 
seemed a scrubbing-board. She placed it over one 
of the caneless chairs, and begged his Excellency to be 
seated. It was a half holiday at the school, she com- 
plained, otherwise her family would be less numerous. 

“Where does your husband do his dentistry?’ Bar- 
stein inquired, seating himself cautiously upon the board. 
‘Do I know?’ said his wife. ‘He goes out, he comes 
> At this moment, to Barstein’s great satisfaction, 
he did come in. 


in. 


THE LUFTMENSCH 263 


‘Holy angel!’ he cried, rushing at the hem of Bar- 
stein’s coat, and kissing it reverently. He was a gaunt, 
melancholy figure, elongated to over six feet, and still 
further exaggerated by a rusty top-hat of the tallest 
possible chimneypot, and a threadbare frockcoat of the 
longest possible tails. At his advent his wife, vastly 
relieved, shepherded her flock into the kitchen and 
closed the door, leaving Barstein alone with the long 
man, who seemed, as he stood gazing at his visitor, 
positively soaring heavenwards with rapture. 

But Barstein inquired brutally: ‘Where do you do 
your dentistry?’ 

‘Never mind me,’ replied Nehemiah ecstatically. 
‘Let me look on you!’ And a more passionate worship 
came into his tranced gaze. 

But Barstein, feeling duped, replied sternly: ‘Where 
do you do your dentistry?’ 

The question seemed to take some moments pene- 
trating through Nehemiah’s rapt brain, but at last he 
replied pathetically: ‘And where shall I find achers? In 
Russia I had my living of it. Here I have no friends.’ 

The homeliness of his vocabulary amused Barstein. 
Evidently the dictionary was his fount of inspiration. 
Without it Niagara was reduced to a trickle. He 
seemed indeed quite shy of speech, preferring to gaze 
with large liquid eyes. 

‘But you have managed to live here for ten years,’ 
Barstein pointed out. 


264 THE LUFTMENSCH 


‘You see how merciful God is!’ Nehemiah rejoined 
eagerly. ‘Never once has He deserted me and my 
children.’ 

‘But what have you done?’ inquired Barstein. 

The first shade of reproach came into Nehemiah’s 
eyes. 

‘Ask sooner what the Almighty has done,’ he said. 

Barstein felt rebuked. One does not like to lose 
one’s character as a holy angel. ‘But your restaurant?’ 
he said. ‘Where is that?’ 

‘That is here.’ 

‘Here!’ echoed Barstein, staring round again. 

‘Where else? Here is a wide opening for a kosher 
restaurant. There are hundreds and hundreds of 
Greeners lodging all around — poor young men with 
only a bed or a corner of a room to sleep on. They 
know not where to go to eat, and my wife, God be 
thanked, is a knowing cook.’ 

‘Oh, then, your restaurant is only an idea.’ 

‘Naturally — a counsel that I have given myself.’ 

‘But have you enough plates and dishes and table- 
cloths? Can you afford to buy the food, and to risk 
its not being eaten?’ 

Nehemiah raised his hands to heaven. 

‘Not being eaten! With a family like mine!’ 

Barstein laughed in spite of himself. And he was 
softened by noting how sensitive and artistic were 
Nehemiah’s outspread hands — they might well have 


THE LUFTMENSCH 265 


wielded the forceps. ‘Yes, I dare say that is what will 
happen,’ he said. ‘How can you keep a restaurant up 
two pairs of stairs where no passer-by will ever see it?’ 

As he spoke, however, he remembered staying in an 
hotel in Sicily which consisted entirely of one upper 
room. Perhaps in the Ghetto Sicilian fashions were 
paralleled. 

‘I do not fly so high as a restaurant in once,’ Ne- 
hemiah explained. ‘But here is this great empty 
room. What am I to do with it? At night of course 
most of us sleep on it, but by daylight it is a waste. 
Also I receive several Hebrew and Yiddish papers a 
week from my friends in Russia and America, and one 
of which I even buy here. When I have read them 
these likewise are a waste. Therefore have I given 
myself a counsel, if I would make here a reading-room 
they should come in the evenings, many young men 
who have only a bed or a room-corner to go to, and 
when once they have learnt to come here it will then be 
easy to make them to eat and drink. First I will give 
to them only coffee and cigarettes, but afterwards shall 
my wife cook them all the Delicatessen of Poland. When 
our custom will become too large we shall take over Berg- 
man’s great fashionable restaurant in the Whitechapel 
Road. He has already given me the option thereof; it is 
only two hundred pounds. And if your gentility : 

‘But I cannot afford two hundred pounds,’ inter- 
rupted Barstein, alarmed. 





266 THE LUFTMENSCH 


‘No, no, it is the Almighty who will afford that,’ 
said Nehemiah reassuringly. ‘From you I ask nothing.’ 

‘In that case,’ replied Barstein drily, ‘I must say 
I consider it an excellent plan. Your idea of building 
up from small foundations is most sensible — some of 
the young men may even have toothache—but I do not 
see where you need me—unless to supply a few papers.’ — 

‘Did I not say you were from heaven?’ Nehemiah’s 
eyes shone again. ‘But I do not require the papers. 
It is enough for me that your holy feet have stood in 
my homestead. I thought you might send money. 
But to come with your own feet! Now I shall be able 
to tell I have spoken with him face to face.’ 

Barstein was touched. ‘I think you will need a 
larger table for the reading-room,’ he said. 

The tall figure shook its tall hat. ‘It is only gas 
that I need for my operations.’ 

‘Gas!’ repeated Barstein, astonished. ‘Then you . 
propose to continue your dentistry too.’ 

‘It is for the restaurant I need the gas,’ elucidated 
Nehemiah. ‘Unless there shall be a cheerful shining 
here the young men will not come. But the penny 
gas is all I need.’ 

‘Well, if it costs only a penny ——’ began Barstein. 

‘A penny in the slot,’ corrected Nehemiah. ‘But 
then there is the meter and the cost of the burners.’ 
He calculated that four pounds would convert the room 
into a salon of light that would attract all the homeless 
moths of the neighbourhood. 


THE LUFTMENSCH 267 


So this was the four-pound solution, Barstein reflected 
with his first sense of solid foothold. After all, Ne- 
hemiah had sustained his surprise visit fairly well — 
he was obviously no Croesus — and if four pounds would 
not only save this swarming family but radiate cheer 
to the whole neighbourhood — 

He sprung open the sovereign-purse that hung on 
his watch-chain. It contained only three pounds ten. 
He rummaged his pockets for silver, finding only eight 
shillings. 

‘I’m afraid I haven’t quite got it!’ he murmured. 

‘As if I couldn’t trust you!’ cried Nehemiah re- 
proachfully, and as he lifted his long coat-tails to 
trouser-pocket the money, Barstein saw that he had 
no waistcoat. 


II 


About six months later, when Barstein had utterly 
forgotten the episode, he received another letter whose 
phraseology instantly recalled everything. 


‘To the most Honourable Competent Authentical 
Illustrious Authority and Universal Celebrious 
Dignity of the very Famous Sculptor. 


‘3A, THE Minorigs, E. 
‘DEAR Sir, 


‘I have the honour and pleasure now to render 
the real and sincere gratitude of my very much obliged 


268 THE LUFTMENSCH 


thanks for Your grand gracious clement sympathical 
propitious merciful liberal compassionable cordial no- 
bility of your real humane generous benevolent genuine 
very kind magnanimous philanthropy, which afforded 
to me a great redemption of my very lamentable des- 
perate necessitous need, wherein I am at present very 
poor indeed in my total ruination by the cruel cynical 
Russia, therein is every day a daily tyrannous mas- 
sacre and assassinate, here is nothing to do any more 
for me previously, I shall rather go to Bursia than to 
Russia. I received from Your dear kind amiable 
amicable goodness recently £4 the same was for me a 
momental recreateing aid in my actual very indigent 
paltry miserable calamitous situation wherein I gain 
now nothing and I only perish here. Even I cannot earn 
here my daily bread by my perfect scientifick Knowledge 
of diverse languages, I know the philological neology 
and archaiology, the best way is for me to go to another 
country to wit, to Bursia or Turkey. Thus, I solicit 
and supplicate Your charitable generosity by my very 
humble and instant request to make me go away from 
here as soon as possible according to Your humane kind 
merciful clemency. 
“Your obedient Servant respectfully, 
‘NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN, 
‘Dentist and Professor of Languages.’ 


So an Academy of Languages had evolved from the 
gas, not a restaurant. Anyhow the dictionary was in 


THE LUFTMENSCH 269 


distress again. Emigration appeared now the only 
salvation. 

But where in the world was Bursia? Possibly 
Persia was meant. But why Persia? Wherein lay 
the attraction of that exotic land, and whatever would 
Mrs. Silvermann and her overflowing progeny do in 
Persia? Nehemiah’s original suggestion of Jerusa- 
lem had been much more intelligible. Perhaps it 
persisted still under the head of Turkey. Not least 
characteristic Barstein found Nehemiah’s tenacious 
gloating over his ancient ruin at the hands of Russia. 

For some days the sculptor went about weighed 
down by Nehemiah’s misfortunes, and the necessity 
of finding time to journey to the Minories. But he 
had an absorbing piece of work, and before he could 
tear himself away from it a still more urgent shower 
of words fell upon him. 


‘3A, THE MINORIES, E. 


‘I have the honour now,’ the new letter ran, ‘to 
inquire about my decided and expecting departure. 
I must sue by my quite humble and very instant entreaty 
Your noble genteel cordial humanity in my very hard 
troublous and bitter and sour vexations and tribulations 
to effect for my poor position at least a private anony- 
mous prompt collection as soon as possible according 
to Your clement magnanimous charitable mercy of 
£15 if not £25 among Your very estimable and respect- 


270 THE LUFTMENSCH 


fully good friends, in good order to go in another country 
even Bursia to get my livelihood by my dental practice 
or by my other scientifick and philological knowledge. 
The great competition is here in anything very vigorous. 
I have here no dental employment, no dental practice, no 
relations, no relief, no gain, no earning, no introduction, 
no protection, no recommendation, no money, no good 
friends, no good connecting acquaintance, in Russia 
{ am ruined and I perish here, I am already desperate 
and despond entirely. I do not know what to do and 
what shall I do, do now in my actual urgent, extreme 
immense need. I am told by good many people, that 
the board of guardians is very seldom to rescue by aid 
the people, but very often is to find only faults, and vices 
and to make them guilty. I have nothing to do there, 
and in the russian jewish fund I found once Sir Asher 
Aaronsberg and he is not to me sympathical. I supply 
and solicit considerably Your kind humane clement 
mercy to answer me as soon as possible quick according 
to Your very gracious mercy. 
Your obedient Servant respectfully, 
‘NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN, 
‘Dentist and Professor of Languages.’ 


As soon as the light failed in his studio, Barstein 
summoned a hansom and sped to the Minories. 


THE LUFTMENSCH 271 


III 


Nehemiah’s voice bade him walk in, and turning 
the door-handle he saw the top-hatted figure sprawled 
in solitary gloom along a caneless chair, reading a 
newspaper by the twinkle of a rushlight. Nehemiah 
sprang up with a bark of joy, making his gigantic 
shadow bow to the visitor. From chimneypot to 
coat-tail he stretched unchanged, and the same celestial 
rapture illumined his gaunt visage. 

But Barstein drew back his own coat-tail from the 
attempted kiss. 

“Where is the gas?’ he asked drily. 

‘Alas, the company removed the meter.’ 

‘But the gas-brackets ?’ 

“What else had we to eat?’ said Nehemiah simply. 

Barstein in sudden suspicion raised his eyes to the 
ceiling. But a fragment of gaspipe certainly came 
through it. He could not, however, recall whether 
the pipe had been there before or not. 

‘So the young men would not come?’ he said. 

‘Oh yes, they came, and they read, and they ate. 
Only they did not pay.’ 

‘You should have made it a rule — cash down.’ 

Again a fine shade of rebuke and astonishment 
crossed his lean and melancholy visage. 

‘And could I oppress a brother-in-Israel? Where 
had those young men to turn but to me?’ 


272 THE LUFTMENSCH 


Again Barstein felt his angelic reputation imperilled. 
He hastened to change the conversation. 

‘And why do you want to go to Bursia?’ he said. 

‘Why shall I want to go to Bursia?’ Nehemiah 
replied. 

‘You said so.’ Barstein showed him the letter. 

‘Ah, I said I shall sooner go to Bursia than to Russia. 
Always Sir Asher Aaronsberg speaks of sending us 
back to Russia.’ 

‘He would,’ said Barstein grimly. ‘But where is 
Bursia ?’ 

Nehemiah shrugged his shoulders. ‘Shall I know? 
My little Rebeccah was drawing a map thereof; she 
won a prize of five pounds with which we lived two 
months. A genial child is my Rebeccah.’ 

‘Ah, then, the Almighty did send you something.’ 

‘And do I not trust Him ?’ said Nehemiah fervently. 
‘Otherwise, burdened down as I am with a multitude 
of children : 

“You made your own burden,’ Barstein could not 
help pointing out. 

Again that look of pain, as if Nehemiah had caught 
sight of feet of clay beneath Barstein’s shining boots. 

‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,’”’ 
Nehemiah quoted in Hebrew. ‘Is not that the very 
first commandment in the Bible?’ 

‘Well, then, you want to go to Turkey,’ said the 
sculptor evasively. ‘I suppose you mean Palestine?’ 





THE LUFTMENSCH 273 


‘No, Turkey. It is to Turkey we Zionists should 
ought to go, there to work for Palestine. Are not 
many of the Sultan’s own officials Jews? If we can 
make of them hot-hearted Zionists ——’ 

It was an arresting conception, and Barstein found 
himself sitting on the table to discuss it. The reverence 
with which Nehemiah listened to his views was touch- 
ing and disconcerting. Barstein felt humbled by the 
celestial figure he cut in Nehemiah’s mental mirror. 
Yet he could not suspect the man of a glozing tongue, 
for of the leaders of Zionism Nehemiah spoke with, 
if possible, greater veneration, with an awe trembling 
on tears. His elongated figure grew even gaunter, his 
lean visage unearthlier, as he unfolded his plan for the 
conquest of Palestine, and Barstein’s original impres- 
sion of his simple sincerity was repeated and re-en- 
forced. 

Presently, however, it occurred to Barstein that 
Nehemiah himself would have scant opportunity of 
influential contact with Ottoman officials, and that the 
real question at issue was, how Nehemiah, his wife, 
and his ‘at least eleven children’ were to be supported 
in Turkey. He mentioned the point. 

Nehemiah waved it away. ‘And cannot the Almighty 
support us in Turkey as well as in England?’ he 
asked. ‘Yes, even in Bursia itself the Guardian of 
Israel is not sleepy.’ 

It was then that the word ‘Luftmensch’ flew into 

. 


274 THE LUFTMENSCH 


Barstein’s mind. Nehemiah was not an earth-man in 
gross contact with solidities. He was an air-man, 
floating on facile wings through the ether. ‘True, he 
spoke of troublesome tribulations, but these were 
mainly dictionary distresses, felt most keenly in the 
rhapsody of literary composition. At worst they 
were mere clouds on the blue. They had nothing in 
common with the fogs which frequently veiled heaven 
from his own vision. Never for a moment had Ne- 
hemiah failed to remember the blue, never had he lost 
his radiant outlook. His very pessimism was merely 
optimism in disguise, since it was only a personal 
pessimism to be remedied by ‘a few frivolous pounds,’ 
by a new crumb from the hand of Providence, not that 
impersonal despair of the scheme of things which 
gave the thinker such black moments. How had 
Nehemiah lived during those first ten years in England ? 
Who should say? But he had had the wild daring to 
uproot himself from his childhood’s home and adventure 
himself upon an unknown shore, and there, by hook or 
crook, for better or for worse, through vicissitudes 
innumerable and crises beyond calculation, ever on the 
perilous verge of nothingness, he had scraped through 
the days and the weeks and the years, fearlessly con- 
tributing perhaps more important items to posterity 
than the dead stones, which were all he, the sculptor, 
bade fair to leave behind him. Welcoming each new 
child with feasting and psalmody, never for a moment 


THE LUFTMENSCH 275 


had Nehemiah lost his robustious faith in life, his belief 
in God, man, or himself. 

Yes, even deeper than his own self-respect was his 
respect for others. An impenetrable idealist, he lived 
surrounded by a radiant humanity, by men become as 
Gods. With no conscious hyperbole did he address 
one as ‘Angel.’ Intellect and goodness were his 
pole-stars. And what airy courage in his mundane 
affairs, what invincible resilience! He had once been 
a dentist, and he still considered himself one. Before 
he owned a tablecloth he deemed himself the proprietor 
of a restaurant. He enjoyed alike the pleasures of 
anticipation and of memory, and having nothing, 
glided ever buoyantly between two gilded horizons. 
The superficial might call him shiftless, but, more 
profoundly envisaged, was he not rather an education 
in the art of living? Did he not incarnate the great 
Jewish gospel of the improvident lilies ? 

“You shall not go to Bursia,’ said Barstein in a burst 
of artistic fervour. ‘Thirteen people cannot possibly get 
there for fifteen pounds or even twenty-five pounds, and 
for such a sum you could start a small business here.’ 

Nehemiah stared at him. ‘God’s messenger!’ was 
all he could gasp. Then the tall melancholy man 
raised his eyes to heaven and uttered a Hebrew volun- 
tary in which references to the ram whose horns were 
caught in the thicket to save Isaac’s life were distinctly 
audible. 


276 THE LUFTMENSCH 


Barstein waited patiently till the pious lips were at 
rest. 

‘But what business do you think you-———?’ he 
began. 

‘Shall I presume dictation to the angel?’ asked 
Nehemiah with wet shining eyes. 

‘I am thinking that perhaps we might find something 
in which your children could help you. How old is 
the eldest?’ 

‘I will ask my wife. Salome!’ he cried. The 
dismal creature trotted in. 

‘How old is Moshelé?’ he asked. 

‘And don’t you remember he was twelve last Taber- 
nacles ?’ 

Nehemiah threw up his long arms. ‘Merciful 
Heaven! He must soon begin to learn his Parshah 
(confirmation portion). What will it be? Where is 
my Chumash (Pentateuch)?’ Mrs. Silvermann drew 
it down from the row of ragged books, and Nehemiah, 
fluttering the pages and bending over the rushlight, 
became lost to the problem of his future. 

Barstein addressed himself to the wife. ‘What 
business do you think your husband could set up 
here ?’ 7 
‘Is he not a dentist?’ she inquired in reply. 

Barstein turned to the busy peering flutterer. 
‘Would you like to be a dentist again?’ 
‘Ah, but how shall I find achers ?’ 


THE LUFTMENSCH 277 


‘You put up a sign,’ said Barstein. ‘One of those 
cases of teeth. I daresay the landlady will permit you 
to put it up by the front door, especially if you take 
anextraroom. I will buy you the instruments, furnish 
the room attractively. You will put in your news- 
papers — why, people will be glad to come as to a 
reading-room !’ he added smiling. 

Nehemiah addressed his wife. ‘Did I not say he 
was a genteel archangel?’ he cried ecstatically. 


IV 


Barstein was sitting outside a café in Rome sipping 
vermouth with Rozenoffski, the Russo- Jewish pianist, 
and Schneemann, the Galician-Jewish painter, when 
he next heard from Nehemiah. 

He was anxiously expecting an important letter, 
which he had instructed his studio-assistant to bring 
to him instantly. So when the man appeared, he 
seized with avidity upon the envelope in his hand. 
But the scrawling superscription at once dispelled his 
hope, and recalled the forgotten Lujftmensch. He 
threw the letter impatiently on the table. 

‘Oh, you may read it,’ his friends protested, mis- 
understanding. 

‘I can guess what it is,’ he said grumpily. Here, 
in this classical atmosphere, in this southern sunshine, 
he felt out of sympathy with the gaunt godly Nehemiah, 
who had doubtless lapsed again into his truly trouble- 


278 THE LUFTMENSCH 


some tribulations. Not a penny more for the ne’er- 
do-well! Let his Providence look after him! 

‘Is she beautiful?’ quizzed Schneemann. 

Barstein roared with laughter. His irate mood was 
broken up. Nehemiah as a petticoated romance was 
too tickling. 

‘You shall read the letter,’ he said. 

Schneemann protested comically. ‘No, no, that 
would be ungentlemanly — you read to us what the 
angel says.’ 

‘It is I that am the angel,’ Barstein laughed, as he 
tore open the letter. He read it aloud, breaking down 
in almost hysterical laughter at each eruption of ad- 
jectives from ‘the dictionary in distress.’ Rozenofiski 
and Schneemann rolled in similar spasms of mirth, and 
the Italians at the neighbouring tables, though entirely 
ignorant of the motive of the merriment, caught the 
contagion, and rocked and shrieked with the mad 
foreigners. 


“3A, THE MInorIEs, E. 


‘RiGHT HONOURABLE ANGELICAL Mr. LEOPOLD 
BARSTEIN. 

‘I have now the honour to again solicit Your 
genteel genuine sympathical humane philanthropic 
kind cordial nobility to oblige me at present by Your 
merciful loan of gracious second and propitious favour- 
able aidance in my actually poor indigent position in 


THE LUFTMENSCH 279 


which I have no earn by my dental practice likewise 
no help, also no protection, no recommendation, no 
employment, and then the competition is here very 
violent. I was ruined by Russia, and I have nothing 
for the celebration of our Jewish new year. Con- 
sequentially upon your merciful archangelical dona- 
tive I was able to make my livelihood by my dental 
practice even very difficult, but still I had my vital 
subsistence by it till up now, but not further for the 
little while, in consequence of it my circumstances are 
now in the urgent extreme immense need. Thus I 
implore Your competent, well famous good-hearted 
liberal magnanimous benevolent generosity to respond 
me in Your beneficent relief as soon as possible, accord- 
ing to Your kind grand clemence of Your good ingenu- 
ous genteel humanity. I wish You a happy new year. 
‘Your obedient servant respectfully, 
‘NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN, 
‘Dentist and Projessor oj Languages.’ 


But when the reading was finished, Schneemann’s 
comment was unexpected. 

‘Rosh Hashanah so near?’ he said. 

A rush of Ghetto memories swamped the three 
artists as they tried to work out the date of the Jewish 
New Year, that solemn period of earthly trumpets and 
celestial judgments. 

‘Why, it must be to-day!’ cried Rozenoffski sud- 


280 THE LUFTMENSCH 


denly. The trio looked at one another with rueful 
humour. Why, the Ghetto could not even realize 
such indifference to the heavenly tribunals so busily 
decreeing their life-or-death sentences ! 

Barstein raised his glass. ‘Here’s a happy new 
year, anyhow!’ he said. 

The three men clinked glasses. 

Rozenoffski drew out a hundred-lire note. 

‘Send that to the poor devil,’ he said. 

‘Oho!’ laughed Schneemann. ‘You still believe 
“Charity delivers from death!” Well, I must be 
saved too!’ And he threw down another hundred-lire 
note. 

To the acutely analytical Barstein it seemed as if 
an old superstitious thrill lay behind Schneemann’s 
laughter as behind Rozenoffski’s donation. 

‘You will only make the Lujtmensch believe still 
more obstinately in his Providence,’ he said, as he 
gathered up the new year gifts. ‘Again will he declare 
that he has been accorded a good writing and a good 
sealing by the Heavenly Tribunal!’ 

‘Well, hasn’t he?’ laughed Schneemann. 

‘Perhaps he has,’ said Rozenoffski musingly. ‘Qui 
sa?’ 








DAN 
i) 
set 











ee eh EUG. OR MOVE 


WHEN Elias Goldenberg, Belcovitch’s head cutter, 
betrothed himself to Fanny Fersht, the prettiest of 
the machinists, the Ghetto blessed the match, always 
excepting Sugarman the Shadchan (whom love matches 
shocked), and Goldenberg’s relatives (who considered 
Fanny flighty and fond of finery). 

‘That Fanny of yours was cut out for a rich man’s 
wife,’ insisted Goldenberg’s aunt, shaking her pious wig. 

‘He who marries Fanny 7s rich,’ retorted Elias. 

‘Pawn your hide, but get a bride,”’ quoted the 
old lady savagely. 

As for the slighted marriage-broker, he remonstrated 
almost like a relative. 

‘But I didn’t want a negotiated marriage,’ Elias 
protested. 


999 


‘A love marriage I could also have arranged for you,’ 


replied Sugarman indignantly. 

But Elias was quite content with his own arrange- 
ment, for Fanny’s glance was melting and her touch 
transporting. To deck that soft warm hand with an 
engagement-ring, a month’s wages had not seemed 
disproportionate, and Fanny flashed the diamond 
bewitchingly. It lit up the gloomy workshop with 

283 


284 THE TUG OF LOVE 


its signal of felicity. Even Belcovitch, bent over his 
press-iron, sometimes omitted to rebuke Fanny’s 
badinage. 

The course of true love seemed to run straight to 
the Canopy — Fanny had already worked the bride- 
groom’s praying-shawl — when suddenly a storm broke. 
At first the cloud was no bigger than a man’s hand — 
in fact, it was a man’s hand. Elias espied it groping 
for Fanny’s in the dim space between the two machines. 
As Fanny’s fingers fluttered towards it, her other hand 
still guiding the cloth under the throbbing needle, 
Elias felt the needle stabbing his heart up and down, 
through and through. The very finger that held his 
costly ring lay in this alien paw gratis. 

The shameless minx! Ah, his relatives were right. 
He snapped the scissors savagely like a dragon’s jaw. 

‘Fanny, what dost thou?’ he gasped in Yiddish. 

Fanny’s face flamed; her guilty fingers flew back. 

‘I thought thou wast on the other side,’ she breathed. 

Elias snorted incredulously. 

As soon as Sugarman heard of the breaking of the 
engagement he flew to Elias, his blue bandanna stream- 
ing from his coat-tail. 

‘If you had come to me,’ he crowed, ‘I should have 
found you a more reliable article. However, Heaven 
has given you a second helping. A well-built wage- 
earner like you can look as high as a greengrocer’s 
daughter even.’ 


THE TUG OF LOVE 285 


‘I never wish to look upon a woman again,’ Elias 
groaned. 

‘“Schiuss!’ said the great marriage-broker. ‘Three 
days after the Fast of Atonement comes the Feast of 
Tabernacles. The Almighty, blessed be He, who 
created both light and darkness, has made obedient 
females as well as pleasure-seeking jades.’ And he 
blew his nose emphatically into his bandanna. 

‘Yes; but she won’t return me my ring,’ Elias 
lamented. 

‘What!’ Sugarman gasped. ‘Then she considers 
herself still engaged to you.’ 

‘Not at all. She laughs in my face.’ 

‘And she has given you back your promise?’ 

‘My promise — yes. The ring — no.’ 

‘But on what ground ?’ 

‘She says I gave it to her.’ 

Sugarman clucked his tongue. ‘Tututu! Better 
if we had followed our old custom, and the man had 
worn the engagement-ring, not the woman!’ 

‘In the workshop,’ Elias went on miserably, ‘she 
flashes it in my eyes. Everybody makes mock. Oh, 
the Jezebel !’ 

‘I should summons her !’ 

‘It would only cost me more. Is it not true I gave 
her the ring?’ 

Sugarman mopped his brow. His vast experience 
was at fault. No maiden had ever refused to return 


286 THE TUG OF LOVE 


his client’s ring; rather had she flung it in the wooer’s 
false teeth. 

‘This comes of your love matches!’ he cried sternly. 
‘Next time there must be a proper contract.’ 

‘Next time!’ repeated Elias. ‘Why, how am I to 
afford a new ring? Fanny was ruinous in cups of 
chocolate and the pit of the Pavilion Theatre !’ 

‘I should want my fee down!’ said Sugarman 
sharply. | 

Elias shrugged his shoulders. ‘If you bring me the 
ring.’ 

‘I do not get old rings, but new maidens,’ Sugarman 
reminded him haughtily. ‘However, as you are a 
customer ’ and crying ‘Five per cent. on the green- 
grocer’s daughter,’ he hurried away ere Elias had time 
to dissent from the bargain. 

Donning his sealskin vest to overawe the Fershts, 
Sugarman ploughed his way up the dark staircase to 
their room. His attire was wasted on the family, for 
Fanny herself opened the door. 

‘Peace to you,’ he cried. ‘I have come on behalf 
of Elias Goldenberg.’ 

‘It is useless. I will not have him.’ And she was 
shutting the door. Her misconception, wilful or not, 
scattered all Sugarman’s prepared diplomacies. ‘He 
does not want you, he wants the ring,’ he cried hastily. 

Fanny indecorously put a finger to her nose. The 
diamond glittered mockingly on it. ‘Then she turned 





THE TUG OF LOVE 287 


away giggling. ‘But look at this photograph!’ panted 
Sugarman desperately through the closing door. 

Surprise and curiosity brought her eyes back. She 
stared at the sheepish features of a frock-coated stranger. 

‘Four pounds a week all the year round, head cutter 
at S. Cohn’s,’ said Sugarman, pursuing this advantage. 
‘A good old English family; Benjamin Beckenstein 
is his name, and he is dying to step into Elias’s shoes.’ 

‘His feet are too large!’ And she flicked the photo- 
graph floorwards with her bediamonded finger. 

‘But why waste the engagement-ring?’ pleaded 
Sugarman, stooping to pick up the suitor. 

‘What an idea! A new man, a new ring!’ And 
Fanny slammed the door. 

‘Impudence-face! Would you become a jewellery 
shop!’ the baffled Shadchan shrieked through the 
woodwork. 

He returned to Elias, brooding darkly. 

‘Well?’ queried Elias. 

‘O, your love matches!’ And Sugarman shook 
them away with shuddersome palms. 

eenen) spe, won't ——’ 

‘No, she won’t. Ah, how blessed you are to escape 
from that daughter of Satan! The greengrocer’s 


? 





daughter, now 
‘Speak me no more matches. I risk no more rings.’ 
‘I will get you one on the hire system.’ 
‘A maiden?’ 


288 THE TUG OF LOVE 


‘Guard your tongue! A ring, of course.’ 

Elias shook an obdurate head. ‘No. I must have 
the old ring back.’ 

‘That is impossible — unless you marry her to get 
it back. Stay! Why should I not arrange that for you?’ 

‘Leave me in peace! Heaven has opened my eyes.’ 

‘Then see how economical she is!’ urged Sugarman. 
‘A maiden who sticks to a ring like that is not likely 
to be wasteful of your substance.’ 

“You have not seen her swallow “‘stuffed monkeys,”’ ’ 
said Elias grimly. ‘Make an end! I have done with 
her: | 

‘No, you have not! You can still give yourself a 
counsel.’ And Sugarman looked a conscious sphinx. 
“You may yet get back the ring.’ 

‘How?’ 

‘Of course, I have the next disposal of it?’ said 
Sugarman. 

bY es ves. 6 Go One 

‘To-morrow in the workshop pretend to steal loving 
glances all day long when she’s not looking. When 


] 





she catches you 

‘But she won’t be looking!’ 

‘Oh, yes, she will. When she catches you, you 
must blush.’ 

‘But I can’t blush at will,’ Elias protested. 

‘I know it is hard. Well, look foolish. That will 
be easier for you.’ 


THE TUG OF LOVE 289 


‘But why shall I look foolish ?’ 

“To make her think you are in love with her after 
all.’ 

‘I should look foolish if I were.’ 

‘Precisely. That is the idea. When she leaves 
the workshop in the evening follow her, and as she 
passes the cake-shop, sigh and ask her if she will not 
eat a “stuffed monkey” for the sake of peace-be-upon- 
him times.’ 

‘But she won’t.’ 

‘Why not? She is still in love.’ 

“With stuffed monkeys,’ said Elias cynically. 

‘With you too.’ 

Elias blushed quite easily. ‘How do you know?’ 

‘I offered her another man, and she slammed the 
door in my face!’ 

“You — you offered ——’ Elias stuttered angrily. 

‘Only to test her,’ said Sugarman soothingly. He 
continued : 

‘Now, when she has eaten the cake and drunk a 
cup of chocolate, too (for one must play high with such 
a ring at stake), you must walk on by her side, and when 
you come to a dark corner, take her hand and say 
“My treasure,’’ or ‘‘My angel,” or whatever nonsense 
you modern young men babble to your maidens — 
with the results you see! —and while she is drinking 
it all in like more chocolate, her fingers in yours, give 
a sudden tug, and off comes the ring!’ 

U 


290 THE TUG OF LOVE 


Elias gazed at him in admiration. ‘You are as 
crafty as Jacob, our father.’ 

‘Heaven has not denied everybody brains,’ replied 
Sugarman modestly. ‘Be careful to seize the left 
hand.’ 

The admiring Elias followed the scheme to the letter. 

Even the blush he had boggled at came to his cheeks 
punctually whenever his sheep’s-eyes met Fanny’s. 
He was so surprised to find his face ants that he 
looked foolish into the bargain. 

They dallied long in the cake-shop, Elias trying to 
summon up courage for the final feint. He would get 
a good grip on the ring finger. The tug-of-war should 
be brief. 

Meantime the couple clinked chocolate cups, and 
smiled into each other’s eyes. 

‘The good-for-nothing!’ thought Elias hotly. ‘She 
will make the same eyes at the next man.’ 

And he went on gorging her, every speculative 
‘stuffed monkey’ increasing his nervous tension. Her 
white teeth, biting recklessly into the cake, made 
him itch to slap her rosy cheek. Confectionery palled 
at last, and Fanny led the way out. Elias followed, 
chattering with feverish Sprit Gradually he drew 
up even with her. 

They turned down the deserted Fishmonger’s Alley, 
lit by one dull gas-lamp. Elias’s limbs began to tremble 
with the excitement of the critical moment. He felt 


THE TUG OF LOVE 291 


like a footpad. Hither and thither he peered — nobody 
was about. But — was he on the right side of her? 
‘The right is the left,’ he told himself, trying to smile, 
but his pulses thumped, and in the tumult of heart 
and brain he was not sure he knew her right hand 
from her left. Fortunately he caught the glitter of 
the diamond in the gloom, and instinctively his robber 
hand closed upon it. 

But as he felt the warm responsive clasp of those 
soft fingers, that ancient delicious thrill pierced every 
vein. Fool that he had been to doubt that dear hand! 
And it was wearing his ring still — she could not part 
with it! O blundering male ingrate! 

‘My treasure! My angel!’ he murmured ecstatically. 












yh 
ae 














Peis sty Me gia oL NT 
; na 


bw ha : 
Leni TV i OF 
ih. Adio. 


ES a aden 
pW ea 
hive) MOR eee Been 


Peary TODISH “WAMEET,’ 


I 

THE little poet sat in the East side café looking six 
feet high. Melchitsedek Pinchas — by dint of a five- 
pound note from Sir Asher Aaronsberg in acknowledge- 
ment of the dedication to him of the poet’s ‘Songs of 
Zion’ — had carried his genius to the great new Jewry 
across the Atlantic. He had arrived in New York 
only that very March, and already a crowd of votaries 
hung upon his lips and paid for all that entered them. 
Again had the saying been verified that a prophet is 
nowhere without honour save in his own country. 
The play that had vainly plucked at the stage-doors 
of the Yiddish Theatres of Europe had already been 
accepted by the leading Yiddish Theatre of New York. 
At least there were several Yiddish Theatres, each 
claiming this supreme position, but the poet felt that 
the production of his play at Goldwater’s Theatre 
settled the question among them. 

‘It is the greatest play of the generation,’ he told 
the young socialists and free-thinkers who sat around 
him this Friday evening imbibing chocolate. ‘It will 


be translated into every tongue.’ He had passed with a 
295 


296 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


characteristic bound from satisfaction with the Ghetto 
triumph into cosmopolitan anticipations. ‘See,’ he 
added, ‘my initials make M.P. — Master Playwright.’ 

‘Also Mud Pusher,’ murmured from the next table 
Ostrovsky, the socialist leader, who found himself 
almost deserted for the new lion. ‘ Who is this un- 
combed bunco-steerer ?’ 

‘He calls himself the “‘sweet singer in Israel,’’’ 
contemptuously replied Ostrovsky’s remaining para- 


. site. 


‘But look here, Pinchas,’ interposed Benjamin 
Tuch, another of the displaced demigods, a politician 
with a delusion that he swayed Presidential elections 
by his prestige in Brooklyn. ‘You said the other 
day that your initials made “‘ Messianic Poet.’”’ 

‘And don’t they?’ inquired the poet, his Dantesque, 
if dingy, face flushing spiritedly. ‘You call yourself a 
leader, and you don’t know your A B C!’ 

There was a laugh, and Benjamin Tuch scowled. 

‘They can’t stand for everything,’ he said. 

‘No—they can’t stand for “Bowery Tough,”’ 
admitted Pinchas; and the table roared again, partly 
at the rapidity with which this linguistic genius had 
picked up the local slang. ‘But as our pious lunatics 
think there are many meanings in every letter of the 
Torah,’ went on the pleased poet, ‘so there are meanings 
innumerable in every letter of my name. If I am play- 
wright as well as poet, was not Shakespeare both also?’ 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 297 


‘You wouldn’t class yourself with a low-down barn- 
stormer like Shakespeare?’ said Tuch sarcastically. 

‘My superiority to Shakespeare I leave to others 
to discover,’ replied the poet seriously, and with un- 
expected modesty. ‘I discovered it for myself in 
writing this very play; but I cannot expect the world 
to admit it till the play is produced.’ 

‘How did you come to find it out yourself?’ asked 
Witberg, the young violinist, who was never sure 
whether he was guying the poet or sitting at his feet. 

‘It happened most naturally — order me another 
cup of chocolate, Witberg. You see, when Iselmann 
was touring with his Yiddish troupe through Galicia, 
he had the idea of acquainting the Jewish masses with 
“Hamlet,” and he asked me to make the Yiddish 
translation, as one great poet translating another — 
and some of those almond-cakes, Witberg! Well, I 
started on the job, and then of course the discovery 
was inevitable. The play, which I had not read since 
my youth, and then only in a mediocre Hebrew version, 
appeared unspeakably childish in places. Take, for 
example, the Ghost — these almond-cakes are as stale 
as sermons; command me a cream-tart, Witberg. 
What was I saying?’ . 

‘The Ghost,’ murmured a dozen voices. 

‘Ah, yes — now, how can a ghost affect a modern 
audience which no longer believes in ghosts?’ 

‘That is true.’ The table was visibly stimulated, 


298 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


as though the chocolate had turned into champagne. 
The word ‘modern’ stirred the souls of these refugees 
from the old Ghettos like a trumpet; unbelief, if only 
in ghosts, was oxygen to the prisoners of a tradition 
of three thousand years. The poet perceived his 
moment. He laid a black-nailed finger impressively 
on the right side of his nose. 

‘I translated Shakespeare — yes, but into modern 
terms. The Ghost vanished — Hamlet’s tragedy re- 
mained only the internal incapacity of the thinker for 
the lower activity of action.’ 

The men of action pricked up their ears. 

‘The higher activity, you mean,’ corrected Ostrovsky. 

‘Thought,’ said Benjamin Tuch, ‘has no value till 
it is translated into action.’ 

‘Exactly; you’ve got to work it up,’ said Colonel 
Klopsky, who had large ranching and mining interests 
out West, and, with his florid personality, looked 
entirely out of place in these old haunts of his. 

‘Schtuss (nonsense) !’ said the poet disrespectfully. 
‘Acts are only soldiers. ‘Thought is the general.’ 

Witberg demurred. ‘It isn’t much use thinking 
about playing the violin, Pinchas.’ 

‘My friend,’ said the poet, ‘the thinker in music is 
the man who writes your solos. His thoughts exist 
whether you play them or not — and independently of 
your false notes. But you performers are all alike —I 
have no doubt the leading man who plays my Hamlet 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 299 


will imagine his is the higher activity. But woe be to 
those fellows if they change a syllable!’ 

‘Your Hamlet?’ sneered Ostrovsky. ‘Since when?’ 

‘Since I re-created him for the modern world, without 
tinsel and pasteboard; since I conceived him in fire 
and bore him in agony; since — even the cream of this 
tart is sour —since I carried him to and fro in my 
pocket, as a young kangaroo is carried in the pouch 
of the mother.’ 

‘Then Iselmann did not produce it?’ asked the 
Heathen Journalist, who haunted the East Side for 
copy, and pronounced Pinchas ‘ Pin-cuss.’ 

‘No, I changed his name to Eselmann, the Donkey- 
man. For I had hardly read him ten lines before he 
brayed out, ‘Where is the Ghost?”’ “The Ghost?”’ 
I said; ‘“‘I have laid him. He cannot walk on the 
modern stage.”? Eselmann tore his hair. “But it is 
for the Ghost I had him translated. Our Yiddish 
audiences love a ghost.” “They love your acting, 
too,” I replied witheringly. ‘‘But I am not here to 
consider the tastes of the mob.” Oh, I gave the 
Donkey-man a piece of my mind.’ 

‘But he didn’t take the piece!’ jested Grunbitz, 
who in Poland had been a Badchan (marriage-jester), 
and was now a Zionist editor. 

‘Bah! These managers are all men-of-the-earth! 
Once, in my days of obscurity, I was made to put a 
besom into the piece, and it swept all my genius off 


300 THE YIDDISH ‘ HAMLET’ 


the boards. Ah, the donkey-men! But I am glad 
Eselmann gave me my “Hamlet” back, for before 
giving it to Goldwater I made it even more subtle. 
No vulgar nonsense of fencing and poison at the end — 
a pure mental tragedy, for in life the soul alone counts. 
No — this cream is just as sour as the other — my play 
will be the internal tragedy of the thinker.’ 

‘The internal tragedy of the thinker is indigestion,’ 
laughed the ex-Badchan; ‘you’d better be more careful 
with the cream-tarts.’ 

The Heathen Journalist broke through the laughter. 
‘Strikes me, Pin-cuss, you’re giving us Hamlet without 
the Prince of Denmark.’ 

‘Better than the Prince of Denmark without Hamlet,’ 
retorted the poet, cramming cream-tart down his 
throat in great ugly mouthfuls; ‘that is how he is 
usually played. In my version the Prince of Denmark 
indeed vanishes, for Hamlet is a Hebrew and the Prince 
of Palestine.’ 

‘You have made him a Hebrew?’ cried Mieses, a 
pimply young poet. 

‘If he is to be the ideal thinker, let him belong to 
the nation of thinkers,’ said Pinchas. ‘In fact, the 
play is virtually an autobiography.’ 

‘And do you call it “Hamlet”’ still?’ asked the 
Heathen Journalist, producing his notebook, for he 
began to see his way to a Sunday scoop. 

‘Why not? ‘True, it is virtually a new work. But 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 301 


Shakespeare borrowed his story from an old play 
called ‘‘Hamlet,” and treated it to suit himself; why, 
therefore, should I not treat Shakespeare as it suits me. 
The cat eats the rat, and the dog bites the cat.’ He 
laughed his sniggering laugh. ‘If I were to call it by 
another name, some learned fool would point out it 
was stolen from Shakespeare, whereas at present it 
challenges comparison.’ 

‘But you discovered Shakespeare cannot sustain the 
comparison,’ said Benjamin Tuch, winking at the 
company. | 

‘Only as the medizval astrologer is inferior to the 
astronomer of to-day,’ the poet explained with placid 
modesty. ‘The muddle-headedness of Shakespeare’s 
ideas — which, incidentally, is the cause of the muddle 
of Hamlet’s character — has given way to the clear 
vision of the modern. How could Shakespeare really 
describe the thinker? The Elizabethans could not 
think. They were like our rabbis.’ 

The unexpected digression into contemporary satire 
made the whole café laugh. Gradually other atoms 
had drifted toward the new magnet. From the remotest 
corners eyes strayed and ears were pricked up. Pinchas 
was indeed a figure of mark, with somebody else’s 
frock-coat on his meagre person, his hair flowing like 
a dark cascade under a broad-brimmed dusky hat, 
and his sombre face aglow with genius and cock- 
sureness. 


302 THE YIDDISH ‘ HAMLET 


‘Why should you expect thought from a rabbi?’ 
said Grunbitz. ‘You don’t expect truth from a trades- 
man. Besides, only youth thinks.’ 

‘That is well said,’ approved Pinchas. ‘He who 
is ever thinking never grows old. I shall die young, 
like all whom the gods love. Waiter, give Mr. Grun- 
bitz a cup of chocolate.’ 

‘Thank you — but I don’t care for any.’ 

‘You cannot refuse — you will pain Witberg,’ said 
the poet simply. 

In the great city around them men jumped on and off 
electric cars, whizzed up and down lifts, hustled through 
lobbies, hulloed through telephones, tore open tele- 
grams, dictated to clacking typists, filled life with 
sound and flurry, with the bustle of the markets and 
the chink of the eternal dollar; while here, serenely 
smoking and sipping, ruffled only by the breezes of 
argument, leisurely as the philosophers in the colon- 
nades of Athens, the talkers of the Ghetto, earnest as 
their forefathers before the great folios of the Talmud, 
made an Oriental oasis amid the simoom whirl of the 
Occident. And the Heathen Journalist who had 
discovered it felt, as so often before, that here alone in 
this arid, mushroom New York was antiquity, was 
restfulness, was romanticism; here was the Latin 
Quarter of the city of the Goths. 

Encouraged by the Master’s good humour, young 
Mieses timidly exhibited his new verses. Pinchas read 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 303 


the manuscript aloud to the confusion of the blushing 
boy. 

‘But it is full of genius !’ he cried in genuine astonish- 
ment. ‘I might have written it myself, except that 
it is so unequal—a mixture of diamonds and paste, 
like all Hebrew literature.’ He indicated with flawless 
taste the good lines, not knowing they were one and all 
unconscious reproductions from the English master- 
pieces Mieses had borrowed from the library in the 
Educational Alliance. The acolytes listened respect- 
fully, and the beardless, blotchy-faced Mieses began to 
take importance in their eyes and to betray the im- 
portance he held in his own. 

‘Perhaps I, too, shall write a play one day,’ he said. 
‘My “M,” too, makes “ Master.’’’ 

‘It may be that you are destined to wear my mantle,’ 
said Pinchas graciously. 

Mieses looked involuntarily at the ill-fitting frock- 
coat. 

Pinchas rose. ‘And now, Mieses, you must give 
me a car-fare. I have to go and talk to the manager 
about rehearsals. One must superintend the actors 
one’s self — these pumpkin-heads are capable of any 
crime, even of altering one’s best phrases.’ 

Radsikoff smiled. He had sat still in his corner, 
this most prolific of Ghetto dramatists, his big, fur- 
rowed forehead supported on his fist, a huge, odorous 
cigar in his mouth. 


304 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


‘I suppose Goldwater plays ‘‘Hamlet,’’’ he said. 

‘We have not discussed it yet,’ said Pinchas airily. 

Radsikoff smiled again. ‘Oh, he’ll pull through 
—so long as Mrs. Goldwater doesn’t play “Ophe- 
‘She play ‘‘Ophelia”! She would not dream of 
such a thing. She is a saucy soubrette; she belongs to 
vaudeville.’ | 

‘All right. I have warned you.’ 

‘You don’t think there is really a danger!’ Pinchas 
was pale and shaking. 

‘The Yiddish stage is so moral. Husbands and 
wives, unfortunately, live and play together,’ said the 
old dramatist drily. 

‘T’ll drown her truly before I let her play my “ Ophe- 
lia,’’’ said the poet venomously. 

Radsikoff shrugged his shoulders and dropped into 
American. ‘Well, it’s up to you.’ 

‘The minx!’ Pinchas shook his fist at the air. 
‘But I'll manage her. If the worst comes to the 
worst, I'll make love to her.’ 

The poet’s sublime confidence in his charms was 
too much even for his admirers. The mental juxta- 
position of the seedy poet and the piquant actress in 
her frills and furbelows set the whole café rocking with 


hia 


laughter. Pinchas took it as a tribute to his ingenious 
method of drawing the soubrette-serpent’s fangs. He 
grinned placidly. 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 305 


‘And when is your play coming on?’ asked Rad- 
sikoff. 

‘After Passover,’ replied Pinchas, beginning to 
button his frockcoat against the outer cold. If only 
to oust this ‘Ophelia,’ he must be at the theatre 
instanter. 

‘Has Goldwater given you a contract?’ 

‘I am a poet, not a lawyer,’ said Pinchas proudly. 
‘Parchments are for Philistines; honest men build on 
the word.’ 

‘After all, it comes to the same thing — with Gold- 
water,’ said Radsikoff drily. ‘But he’s no worse than 
the others; I’ve never yet found the contract any 
manager couldn’t slip out of. I’ve never yet met 
the playwright that the manager couldn’t dodge.’ 
Radsikoff, indeed, divided his time between devising 
plays and devising contracts. Every experience but 
suggested fresh clauses. He regarded Pinchas with 
commiseration rather than jealousy. ‘I shall come 
to your first night,’ he added. 

‘It will be a tribute which the audience will appre- 
ciate,’ said Pinchas. ‘I am thinking that if I had one 
of these aromatic cigars I too might offer a burnt- 
offering unto the Lord.’ 

There was general laughter at the blasphemy, for 
the Sabbath, with its privation of fire, had long since 
begun. 

‘Try taking instead of thinking,’ laughed the play- 


x 


306 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


wright, pushing forward his case. ‘Action is greater 
than Thought.’ 

‘No, no, no!’ Pinchas protested, as he fumbled for 
the finest cigar. ‘Wait till you see my play — you 
must all come —I will send you all boxes. Then you 
will learn that Thought is greater than Action — that 
Thought is the greatest thing in the world.’ 


II 


Sucking voluptuously at Radsikoff’s cigar, Pinchas 
plunged from the steam-heated, cheerful café into the 
raw, unlovely street, still hummocked with an ancient, 
uncleared snowfall. He did not take the horse-car 
which runs in this quarter; he was reserving the 
five cents for a spirituous nightcap. His journey was 
slow, for a side street that he had to pass through was, 
like nearly all the side streets of the great city, an 
abomination of desolation, a tempestuous sea of frozen, 
dirty snow, impassable by all save pedestrians, and 
scarcely by them. Pinchas was glad of his cane; an 
alpenstock would not have been superfluous. But the 
theatre with its brilliantly-lighted lobby and flam- 
boyant posters restored his spirits; the curtain was 
already up, and a packed mass filled the house from roof 
to floor. Rebuffed by the janitors Pinchas haughtily 
asked for Goldwater. Goldwater was on the stage, and 
could not see him. But nothing could down the poet, 
whose head seemed to swell till it touched the gallery. 


THE YIDDISH ‘ HAMLET’ 307 


This great theatre was his, this mighty audience his to 
melt and fire. 

‘IT will await him in a box,’ he said. 

“There’s no room,’ said the usher. 

Pinchas threw up his head. ‘I am the author of 
‘Hamlet’ !’ 

The usher winced as at a blow. All his life he had 
heard vaguely of ‘Hamlet’ — as a great play that was 
acted on Broadway. And now here was the author 
himself! All the instinctive snobbery of the Ghetto 
toward the grand world was excited. And yet this 
seedy figure conflicted painfully with his ideas of the 
uptown type. But perhaps all dramatists were alike. 
Pinchas was bowed forward. 

In another instant the theatre was in an uproar. A 
man in a comfortable fauteuil had been asked to accom- 
modate the distinguished stranger and had refused. 

‘I pay my dollar — what for shall I go?’ 

‘But it is the author of “Hamlet”’!’ 

‘My money is as good as his.’ 

‘But he doesn’t. pay.’ 

‘And I shall give my good seat to a Schnorrer !” 

‘Sh! sh!’ from all parts of the house, like water 
livening, not killing, a flame. From every side came 
expostulations in Yiddish and American. This was a 
free republic; the author of ‘“‘Hamlet’’ was no better 
than anybody else. Goldwater, on the stage, glared 
at the little poet. 


308 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


At last a compromise was found. A chair was 
placed at the back of a packed box. American boxes 
are constructed for publicity, not privacy, but the 
other dozen occupants bulked between him and the 
house. Hecouldsee, but he could not be seen. Sullen 
and mortified he listened contemptuously to the play. 

It was, indeed, a strange farrago, this romantic 
drama with which the vast audience had replaced the 
Sabbath pieties, the home-keeping ritual of the Ghetto, 
in their swift transformation to American life. Con- 
fined entirely to Jewish characters, it had borrowed 
much from the heroes and heroines of the Western 
world, remaining psychologically true only in its 
minor characters, which were conceived and rendered 
with wonderful realism by the gifted actors. And 
this naturalism was shot through with streaks of pure 
fantasy, so that kangaroos suddenly bounded on in 
a masque for the edification of a Russian tyrant. 
But comedy and fantasy alike were subordinated to 
horror and tragedy: these refugees from the brutality 
of Russia and Rumania, these inheritors of the wailing 
melodies of a persecuted synagogue, craved morbidly 
for gruesomeness and gore. The ‘happy endings’ of 
Broadway would have spelled bankruptcy here. Players 
and audience made a large family party — the unfailing 
result of a stable stock company with the parts always 
cast in the same mould. And it was almost an im- 
promptu performance. Pinchas, from his proximity to 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 309 


the stage, could hear every word from the prompter’s 
box, which rose in the centre of the footlights. The 
Yiddish prompter did not wait till the players ‘dried 
up’; it was his réle to read the whole play ahead of 
them. ‘Then you are the woman who murdered my 
mother,’ he would gabble. And the actor, hearing, 
invented immediately the fit attitude and emphasis, 
spinning out with elocutionary slowness and passion 
the raw material supplied to him. No mechanical 
crossing and recrossing the stage, no punctilious 
tuition by your stage-manager — all was inspiration and 
fire. But to Pinchas this hearing of the play twice over 
—once raw and once cooked — was maddening. 

“The lazy-bones!’ he murmured. ‘Not thus shall 
they treat my lines. Every syllable must be engraved 
upon their hearts, or I forbid the curtain to go up. 
Not that it matters with this fool-dramatist’s words; 
they are ink-vomit, not literature.’ 

Another feature of the dialogue jarred upon his 
literary instinct. Incongruously blended with the 
Yiddish were elementary American expressions — the 
first the immigrants would pick up. ‘AII right,’ 
‘Sure!’ ‘Yes, sir,’ ‘Say, how’s the boss?’ ‘Good- 
Dyer ivop a) cent.” “Take the elevated.’)) “Yup.’ 
‘Nup.’ ‘That’s one on you!’ ‘Rubber-neck!’ A 
continuous fusillade of such phrases stimulated and 
flattered the audience, pleased to find themselves on 
such easy terms with the new language. But to Pinchas 


310 THE. YIDDISH “HAMLET * 


the idea of peppering his pure Yiddish with such 
locutions was odious. The Prince of Palestine talking 
with a twang — how could he permit such an outrage 
upon his Hebrew Hamlet ? 

Hardly had the curtain fallen on the act than he 
darted through the iron door that led from the rear 
of the box to the stage, jostling the cursing carpenters, 
and pushed aside by the perspiring principals, on 
whom the curtain was rising and re-rising in a con- 
tinuous roar. At last he found himself in the little 
bureau and dressing-room in which Goldwater was 
angrily changing his trousers. Kloot, the actor- 
manager’s factotum, a big-nosed insolent youth, sat 
on the table beside the telephone, a peaked cap on 
his head, his legs swinging. 

‘Son of a witch! You come and disturb all my 
house. What do you want?’ cried Goldwater. 

‘I want to talk to you about rehearsals.’ 

‘I told you I would let you know when rehearsals 
began.’ 

‘But you forgot to take my address.’ 

‘As if I don’t know where to find you!’ 

Kloot grinned. ‘Pinchas gets drinks from all the 
café,’ he put in. 

‘They drink to the health of ‘“‘Hamlet,’’’ said Pinchas 
proudly. | 

‘All right; Kloot’s gotten your address. Good- 
evening.’ 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 311 


‘But when will it be? I must know!’ 

“We can’t fix it toa day. There’s plenty of money 
in this piece yet.’ 

‘Money — bah! But merit?’ 

‘You fellows are as jealous as the devil.’ 

‘Me jealous of kangaroos! In Central Park you 
see giraffes—and tortoises too. Central Park has 
more talent than this scribbler of yours.’ 

‘I doubt if there’s a bigger peacock than here,’ 
murmured Goldwater. 

‘T’ll write you about rehearsals,’ said Kloot, winking 
at Goldwater. 

‘But I must know weeks ahead — I may go lecturing. 


The great continent calls for me. In Chicago, in 





Cincinnati 

‘Go, by all means,’ said Goldwater. ‘We can do 
without you.’ 

‘Do without me? A nice mess you will make of it! 
I must teach you how to say every line.’ 

‘Teach me?’ Goldwater could hardly believe his 
ears. 

Pinchas wavered. ‘I—I mean the company. I 
will show them the accent — the gesture. I’m a great 
stage-manager as well as a great poet. ‘There shall be 
no more prompter.’ 

‘Indeed!’ Goldwater raised the eyebrow he was 
pencilling. ‘And how are you-going to get on without 
a prompter ?’ 


312 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


‘Very simple —a month’s rehearsals.’ 

Goldwater turned an apoplectic hue deeper than his 
rouge. 

Kloot broke in impishly: ‘It is very good of you to 
give us a month of your valuable time.’ 

But Goldwater was too irate for irony. ‘A month!’ 
he gasped at last. ‘I could put on six melodramas 
in a month.’ 

‘But ‘“Hamlet’’ is not a melodrama!’ said Pinchas, 
shocked. 

‘Quite so; there is not half the scenery. It’s 
the scenery that takes time rehearsing, not the 
scenes.’ 

The poet was now as purple as the player. ‘You 
would profane my divine work by gabbling through 
it with your pack of parrots!’ 

‘Here, just you come off your perch!’ said Kloot. 
‘You’ve written the piece; we do the rest.’ Kloot, 
though only nineteen and at a few dollars a week, 
had a fine, careless equality not only with the whole 
world, but even with his employer. He was now, to 
his amaze, confronted by a superior. 

‘Silence, impudent-face! You are not talking to 
Radsikoff. Iam a Poet, and I demand my rights.’ 

Kloot was silent from sheer surprise. 

Goldwater was similarly impressed. ‘What rights?’ 
he observed more mildly. ‘You’ve had your twenty 
dollars. And that was too much.’ 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 3138 


‘Too much! Twenty dollars for the masterpiece 
of the twentieth century!’ 

‘In the twenty-first century you shall have twenty- 
one dollars,’ said Kloot, recovering. 

‘Make mock as you please,’ replied the poet superbly. 
‘I shall be living in the fifty-first century even. Poets 
never die — though, alas! they have to live. Twenty 
dollars too much, indeed! It is not a dollar a century 
for the run of the play.’ 

‘Very well,’ said Goldwater grimly. ‘Give them 
back. We return your play.’ 

This time it was the poet that was disconcerted. 
‘No, no, Goldwater—I must not disappoint my 
printer. I have promised him the twenty dollars to 
print my Hebrew ‘“‘Selections from Nietzsche. 

“You take your manuscript and give me my money,’ 


33'9 


said Goldwater implacably. 

‘Exchange would be a robbery. I will not rob 
you. Keep your bargain. See, here is the printer’s 
letter.’ He dragged from a tail-pocket a mass of 
motley manuscripts and yellow letters, and _ laid 
them beside the telephone as if to search among 
them. 

Goldwater waved a repudiating hand. 

‘Be not a fool-man, Goldwater.’ The poet’s carney- 
ing forefinger was laid on his nose. ‘I and you are 
the only two people in New York who serve the poetic 
drama —I by writing, you by producing.’ 


314 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


Goldwater still shook his head, albeit a whit ap- 
peased by the flattery. 

Kloot replied for him: ‘Your manuscript shall be 
returned to you by the first dustcart.’ 

Pinchas disregarded the youth. ‘But I am willing 
you shall have only a fortnight’s rehearsals. I believe 
in you, Goldwater. I have always said, ‘“‘The only 
genius on the Yiddish stage is Goldwater.” Kloster- 
mann—bah! He produces not so badly, but act? 
My grandmother’s hen has a better stage presence. 
And there is Davidoff — a voice like a frog and a walk 
like a spider. And these charlatans I only heard of 
when I came to New York. But you, Goldwater — 
your fame has blown across the Atlantic, over the Car- 
pathians. I journeyed from Cracow expressly to 
collaborate with you.’ 

‘Then why do you spoil it all?’ asked the mollified 
manager. 

‘It is my anxiety that Europe shall not be disappointed 
in you. Let us talk of the cast.’ 

‘It is so early yet.’ 

‘The early bird catches the worm.’”’ 

‘But all our worms are caught,’ grinned Kloot. 
‘We keep our talent pinned on the premises.’ 

‘I know, I know,’ said Pinchas, paling. He saw 
Mrs. Goldwater tripping on saucily as Ophelia. 

‘But we don’t give all our talent to one play,’ the 
manager reminded him. 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 315 


‘No, of course not,’ said Pinchas, with a breath of 
hope. 

“We have to use all our people by turns. We divide 
our forces. With myself as Hamlet you will have a 
cast that should satisfy any author.’ 

‘Do I not know it?’ cried Pinchas. ‘Were you but 
to say your lines, leaving all the others to be read by 
the prompter, the house would be spellbound, like 
Moses when he saw the burning bush.’ 

‘That being so,’ said Goldwater, ‘you couldn’t 
expect to have my wife in the same cast.’ 

‘No, indeed,’ said Pinchas enthusiastically. ‘Two 
such tragic geniuses would confuse and distract, like the 
sun and the moon shining together.’ 

Goldwater coughed. ‘But Ophelia is really a small 
part,’ he murmured. 

‘It is,’ Pinchas acquiesced. ‘Your wife’s tragic 
powers could only be displayed in ‘“‘Hamlet’’ if, like 
another equally celebrated actress, she appeared as the 
Prince of Palestine himself.’ 

‘Heaven forbid my wife should so lower herself!’ 
said Goldwater. ‘A decent Jewish housewife cannot 
appear in breeches.’ 

‘That is what makes it impossible,’ assented Pinchas. 
‘And there is no other part worthy of Mrs. Gold- 
water.’ 

‘It may be she would sacrifice herself,’ said the 
manager musingly. 


316 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


‘And who am I that I should ask her to sacrifice 
herself?’ replied the poet modestly. 

‘Fanny won’t sacrifice Ophelia,’ Kloot observed 
drily to his chief. 

“You hear?’ said Goldwater, as quick as lightning. 
‘My wife will not sacrifice Ophelia by leaving her to a 
minor player. She thinks only of the play. It is very 
noble of her.’ 

‘But she has worked so hard,’ pleaded the poet 
desperately, ‘she needs a rest.’ 

‘My wife never spares herself.’ 

Pinchas lost his head. ‘But she might spare Ophelia,’ 
he groaned. 

“What do you mean?’ cried Goldwater gruffly. 
‘My wife will honour you by playing Ophelia. That 
is ended.’ He waved the make-up brush in his hand. 


‘No, it is not ended,’ said Pinchas desperately. 
b 





‘Your wife is a comic actress 





“You just admitted she was tragic ; 

‘It is heartbreaking to see her in tragedy,’ said 
Pinchas, burning his boats. ‘She skips and jumps. 
Rather would I give Ophelia to one of your kangaroos !’ 

“You low-down monkey!’ Goldwater almost flung 
his brush into the poet’s face. ‘You compare my 
wife to a kangaroo! Take your filthy manuscript and 
begone where the pepper grows.’ 

‘Well, Fanny would be rather funny as Ophelia,’ 
put in Kloot pacifyingly. 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 317 


‘And to make your wife ridiculous as Ophelia,’ 
added Pinchas eagerly, ‘you would rob the world of 
your Hamlet !’ 

‘I can get plenty of Hamlets. Any scribbler can 
translate Shakespeare.’ 

‘Perhaps, but who can surpass Shakespeare? Who 
can make him intelligible to the modern soul ?’ 

‘Mr. Goldwater,’ cried the call-boy, with the patness 
of a reply. 

The irate manager bustled out, not sorry to escape 
with his dignity and so cheap a masterpiece. Kloot 
was left, with swinging legs, dominating the situation. 
In idle curiosity and with the simplicity of perfectly 
bad manners, he took up the poet’s papers and letters 
and perused them. As there were scraps of verse 
amid the mass, Pinchas let him read on unrebuked. 

‘You will talk to him, Kloot,’ he pleaded at last. 
“You will save Ophelia?’ 

The big-nosed youth looked up from his impertinent 
Inquisition. ‘Rely on me, if I have to play her 
myself.’ 

‘But that will be still worse,’ said Pinchas seriously. 

Kloot grinned. ‘How do you know? You’ve never 
seen me act?’ 

The poet laid his finger beseechingly on his nose. 
‘You will not spoil my play, you will get me a maidenly 
Ophelia? I and you are the only two men in New 
York who understand how to cast a play.’ 


818 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


‘You leave it to me,’ said Kloot; ‘I have a wife of my 
own.’ 

‘What!’ shrieked Pinchas. 

‘Don’t be alarmed — I’ll coach her. She’s just the 
age for the part. Mrs. Goldwater might be her mother.’ 

‘But can she make the audience cry?’ 

‘You bet; a regular onion of an Ophelia.’ 

‘But I must see her rehearse, then I can decide.’ 

‘Of course.’ 

‘And you will seek me in the café when rehearsals 
begin ?’ 

‘That goes without saying.’ 

The poet looked cunning. ‘But don’t you say 
without going.’ 

‘How can we rehearse without you? You shouldn’t 
have worried the boss. We'll call you, even if it’s the 
middle of the night.’ 

The poet jumped at Kloot’s hand and kissed it. 

‘Protector of poets!’ he cried ecstatically. ‘And 
you will see that they do not mutilate my play; you 
will not suffer a single hair of my poesy to be harmed ?’ 

‘Not a hair shall be cut,’ said Kloot solemnly. 

Pinchas kissed his hand again. ‘Ah, I and you 
are the only two men in New York who understand 
how to treat poesy.’ 

‘Sure!’ Kloot snatched his hand away. ‘Good- 
bye.’ 

Pinchas lingered, gathering up his papers. ‘And 


THE YIDDISH ‘ HAMLET’ 319 


you will see it is not adulterated with American. In 
Zion they do not say ‘‘Sure”’ or ‘‘Lend me a nickel.’”’ 

‘I guess not,’ said Kloot. ‘Good-bye.’ 

‘All the same, you might lend me a nickel for car- 
fare.’ 

Kloot thought his departure cheap at five cents. 
He handed it over. 

The poet went. An instant afterwards the door 
reopened and his head reappeared, the nose adorned 
with a pleading forefinger. 

“You promise me all this?’ 

‘Haven’t I promised ?’ 

“But swear to me.’ 

Will you go — if I swear.’ 

Yup; said Pinchas, airing his American. 

‘And you won’t come back till rehearsals begin?’ 

“Nup.’ 

“Then I swear — on my father’s and mother’s life!’ 

Pinchas departed gleefully, not knowing that Kloot 
was an orphan. 


III 


On the very verge of Passover, Pinchas, lying in 
bed at noon with a cigarette in his mouth, was reading 
his morning paper by candle-light; for he tenanted 
one of those innumerable dark rooms which should 
make New York the photographer’s paradise. The 
yellow glow illumined his prophetic and unshaven 


320 THE YIDDISH ‘ HAMLET’ 


countenance, agitated by grimaces and sniffs, as he 
critically perused the paragraphs whose Hebrew 
letters served as the channel for the mongrel Yiddish 
and American dialect, in which ‘congressman,’ ‘sweater’ 
and such-like crudities of to-day had all the outer 
Oriental robing of the Old Testament. Suddenly a 
strange gurgle spluttered through the cigarette smoke. 
He read the announcement again. 

The Yiddish ‘Hamlet’ was to be the Passover produc- 
tion at Goldwater’s Theatre. The author was the world- 
renowned poet Melchitsedek Pinchas, and the music 
was by Ignatz Levitsky, the world-famous composer. 

‘World-famous composer, indeed!’ cried Pinchas to 
his garret walls. ‘Who ever heard of Ignatz Levitsky? 
And who wants his music? ‘The tragedy of a thinker 
needs no caterwauling of violins. Does Goldwater 
imagine I have written a melodrama? At most will 
I permit an overture — or the cymbals shall clash as I 
take my call.’ | 

He leaped out of bed. Even greater than his irrita- 
tion at this intrusion of Levitsky was his joyful indig- 
nation at the imminence of his play. The dogs! The 
liars! The first night was almost at hand, and no sign 
had been vouchsafed to him. He had been true to his 
promise; he had kept away from the theatre. But 
Goldwater! But Kloot! Ah, the godless gambler 
with his parents’ lives! With such ghouls hovering 
around the Hebrew ‘Hamlet,’ who could say how the 


THE YIDDISH ‘ HAMLET’ 821 


masterpiece had been mangled? Line upon line had 
probably been cut; nay, who knew that a whole scene 
had not been shorn away, perhaps to give more time 
for that miserable music ! 

He flung himself into his clothes and, taking his cane, 
hurried off to the theatre, breathless and breakfast- 
less. Orchestral music vibrated through the lobby 
and almost killed his pleasure in the placards of the 
Yiddish ‘Hamlet.’ He gave but a moment to absorb- 
ing the great capital letters of his name; a dash at a 
swinging-door, and he faced a glowing, crowded stage 
at the end of a gloomy hall. Goldwater, limelit, occu- 
pied the centre of the boards. Hamlet trod the battle- 
ments of the tower of David, and gazed on the cupolas 
and minarets of Jerusalem. 

With a raucous cry, half anger, half ecstasy, Pinchas 
galloped toward the fiddling and banging orchestra. 
A harmless sweeper in his path was herself swept aside. 
But her fallen broom tripped up the runner. He fell 
with an echoing clamour, to which his clattering cane 
contributed, and clouds of dust arose and gathered 
where erst had stood a poet. 

Goldwater stopped dead. ‘Can’t you sweep quietly ?’ 
he thundered terribly through the music. 

Ignatz Levitsky tapped his baton, and the orchestra 
paused. 

‘It is I, the author!’ said Pinchas, struggling up 
through clouds like some pagan deity. 

Y 


322 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


Hamlet’s face grew as inky as his cloak. ‘And 
what do you want?’ 

‘What do I want?’ repeated Pinchas, in sheer amaze. 

Kloot, in his peaked cap, emerged from the wings 
munching a sandwich. 

‘Sure, there’s Shakespeare!’ he said. ‘I’ve just 
been round to the café to find you. Got this sandwich 
there.’ 

‘But this — this isn’t the first rehearsal,’ stammered 
Pinchas, a jot appeased. 

‘The first dress-rehearsal,’ Kloot replied reassur- 
ingly. ‘We don’t trouble authors with the rough 
work. They stroll in and put on the polish. Won’t 
you come on the stage?’ | 

Unable to repress a grin of hanpinees Pinchas 
stumbled through the dim parterre, barking his shins 
at almost every step. Arrived at the orchestra, he 
found himself confronted by a chasm. He wheeled 
to the left, to where the stage-box, shrouded in brown 
holland, loomed ghostly. 

‘No,’ said Kloot, ‘that door’s got stuck. You must 
come round by the stage-door.’ 

Pinchas retraced his footsteps, barking the smooth 
remainder of his shins. He allowed himself a palpi- 
tating pause before the lobby posters. His blood 
chilled. Not only was Ignatz Levitsky starred in equal 
type, but another name stood out larger than either: 


Ophelia ee ws *: Fanny Goldwater. 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 323 


His wrath reflaming, he hurried round to the stage- 
door. He pushed it open, but a gruff voice inquired 
his business, and a burly figure blocked his way. 

‘I am the author,’ he said with quiet dignity. 

‘Authors ain’t admitted,’ was the simple reply. 

‘But Goldwater awaits me,’ the poet protested. 

‘I guess not. Mr. Kloot’s orders. Can’t have 
authors monkeying around here.’ As he spoke Gold- 
water’s voice rose from the neighbouring stage in an 
operatic melody, and reduced Pinchas’s brain to 
chaos. A despairing sense of strange plots and trea- 
sons swept over him. He ran back to the lobby. 
The doors had been bolted. He beat against them 
with his cane and his fists and his toes till a tall police- 
man persuaded him that home was better than a 
martyr’s cell. 

Life remained an unintelligible nightmare for poor 
Pinchas till the first night — and the third act — of the 
Yiddish ‘Hamlet.’ He had reconciled himself to his 
extrusion from rehearsals. ‘They fear I fire Ophelia,’ 
he told the café. 

But a final blow awaited him. No ticket reached 
him for the premiére; the boxes he had promised the 
café did not materialize, and the necessity of avoiding 
that haunt of the invited cost him several meals. But 
that he himself should be refused when he tried to pass 
in ‘on his face’—that authors should be admitted 
neither at the stage-door nor at the public door — this 


324 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


had not occurred to him as within the possibilities 
of even theatrical humanity. 

‘Pigs! Pigs! Pigs!’ he shrieked into the box office, 
‘You and Goldwater and Kloot! Pigs! Pigs! Pigs! 
I have indeed cast my pearls before swine. But 
I will not be beholden to them—I will buy a 
ticket.’ 

‘We’re sold out,’ said the box-office man, adding 
recklessly: ‘Get a move on you; other people want 
to buy seats.’ 

‘You can’t keep me out! It’s conspiracy!’ He 
darted within, but was hustled as rapidly without. He 
ran back to the stage-door, and hurled himself against 
the burly figure. He rebounded from it into the side- 
walk, and the stage-door closed upon his humiliation. 
He was left cursing in choice Hebrew. It was like 
the maledictions in Deuteronomy, only brought up to 
date by dynamite explosions and automobile accidents. 
Wearying of the waste of an extensive vocabulary upon 
a blank door, Pinchas returned to the front. The 
lobby was deserted save for a few strangers; his play 
had begun. And he —he, the god who moved all this 
machinery —he, whose divine fire was warming all 
that great house, must pace out here in the cold and 
dark, not even permitted to loiter in the corridors! 
But for the rumblings. of applause that reached him he 
could hardly have endured the situation. 

Suddenly an idea struck him. He hied to the 


Pae YIDDISH: ‘HAMLET? 325 


nearest drug-store, and entering the telephone cabinet 
rang up Goldwater. 

‘Hello, there!’ came the voice of Kloot. ‘Who are 
you?’ 

Pinchas had a vivid vision of the big-nosed youth, 
in his peaked cap, sitting on the table by the telephone, 
swinging his legs; but he replied craftily, in a disguised 
voice: ‘You, Goldwater ?’ 

‘No; Goldwater’s on the stage.’ 

Pinchas groaned. But at that very instant Gold- 
water’s voice returned to the bureau, ejaculating com- 
placently: ‘They’re loving it, Kloot; they’re swallow- 
ing it like ice-cream soda.’ 

Pinchas tingled with pleasure, but all Kloot replied 
was: ‘You’re wanted on the ’phone.’ 

‘Hello!’ called Goldwater. 

‘Hello!’ replied Pinchas in his natural voice. ‘May 
a sudden death smite you! May the curtain fall on a 
gibbering epileptic !’ 

‘Can’t hear!’ said Goldwater. ‘Speak plainer.’ 

‘I will speak plainer, swine-head! Never shall a 
work of mine defile itself in your dirty dollar-factory. 
I spit on you!’ He spat viciously into the telephone 


disk. ‘Your father was a Meshummad (apostate), and 





your mother 

But Goldwater had cut off the connection. Pinchas 
finished for his own satisfaction: ‘An Irish fire- 
woman.’ 


326 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


‘That was worth ten cents,’ he muttered, as he strode 
out into the night. And patrolling the front of the 
theatre again, or leaning on his cane as on a sword, 
he was warmed by the thought that his venom had 
pierced through all the actor-manager’s defences. 

At last a change came over the nightmare. Striding 
from the envied, illuminated Within appeared the 
Heathen Journalist, note-book in hand. At sight of 
the author he shied. ‘Must skedaddle, Pin-cuss,’ he 
said apologetically, ‘if we’re to get anything into to- 
morrow’s paper. Your people are so durned slow — 
nearly eleven, and only two acts over. You'll have 
to brisk ’em up a bit. Good-bye.’ 

He shook the poet’s hand and was off. With an 
inspiration Pinchas gave chase. He caught the 
Journalist just boarding a car. 

‘Got your theatre ticket ?’ he panted. 

“What for ?’ 

NIve ate.’ 

The Journalist fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and 
threw him a crumpled fragment. ‘What in thun- 
der ——’ he began. And then, to Pinchas’s relief, the 
car removed the querist. 

For the moment the poet was feeling only the indignity 
of the position, and the Heathen Journalist as trumpeter 
of his wrongs and avenger of the Muses had not occurred 
to him. He smoothed out the magic scrap, and was 
inside the suffocating, close-packed theatre before 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 527 


the disconcerted janitor could meet the new situation. 
Pinchas found the vacated journalistic chair in the 
stage-box; he was installed therein before the mana- 
gerial minions arrived on ejection bent. 

‘This is my house!’ screamed Pinchas. ‘I stay here! 
Let me be — swine, serpents, Behemoth !’ 

‘Sh!’ came in a shower from every quarter. ‘Sit 
down there! Turn him out!’ The curtain was going 
up; Pinchas was saved. 

But only for more gruesome torture. The third act 
began. Hamlet collogued with the Queen. The poet 
pricked up his ears. Whose language was this? 
Certainly not Shakespeare’s or his superior’s. Angels 
and ministers of grace defend him! this was only the 
illiterate jargon of the hack playwright, with its pep- 
pering of the phrases of Hester Street. ‘You have too 
many dead flies on you,’ Hamlet’s mother told him. 
‘You'll get left.’ But the nightmare thickened. Ham- 
let and his mother opened their mouths and sang. 
Their songs were light and gay, and held encore verses 
to reward the enthusiastic. The actors, like the audi- 
ence, were leisurely; here midnight and the closure 
were not synonymous. When there were no more 
encore verses, Ignatz Levitsky would turn to the au- 
dience and bow in acknowledgment of the compliment. 
Pinchas’s eyes were orbs straining at their sockets; 
froth gathered on his lips. 

Mrs. Goldwater bounded on, fantastically mad, her 


328 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


songs set to comic airs. The great house received her 
in the same comic spirit. Instead of rue and rosemary 
she carried a rustling green Ludov — the palm-branch of 
the Feast of Tabernacles — and shook it piously toward 
every corner of the compass. At each shake the 
audience rolled about in spasms of merriment. A 
moment later a white gliding figure, moving to the 
measure of the cake-walk, keyed up the laughter to 
hysteria. It was the Ghost appearing to frighten 
Ophelia. His sepulchral bass notes mingled with her 
terror-stricken soprano. 

This was the last straw. The Ghost —the Ghost 
that he had laid forever, the Ghost that made melo- 
drama of this tragedy of the thinker — was risen again, 
and cake-walking ! 

Unperceived in the general convulsion and cachin- 
nation, Pinchas leaped to his feet, and, seeing scarlet, 
bounded through the iron door and made for the 
stage. But a hand was extended in the nick of time — 
the hand he had kissed — and Pinchas was drawn back 
by the collar. 

‘You don’t take your call yet,’ said the unruffled 
Kloot. 

‘Let me go! I must speak to the people. They 
must learn the truth. They think me, Melchitsedek 
Pinchas, guilty of this tohu-bohu! My sun will set. 
I shall be laughed at from the Hudson to the 
Jordan.’ 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 329 


‘Hush! Hush! You are interrupting the poesy.’ 

“Who has drawn and quartered my play? Speak!’ 

‘I’ve only arranged it for the stage,’ said Kloot, 
unabashed. 

‘You!’ gasped the poet. 

“You said I and you are the only two men who 
understand how to treat poesy.’ 

“You understand push-carts, not poesy!’ hissed the 
poet. ‘You conspire to keep me out of the theatre— 
I will summons you!’ 

‘We had to keep all authors out. Suppose Shake- 
speare had turned up and complained of you.’ 

‘Shakespeare would have been only too grateful.’ 

‘Hush! The boss is going on.’ 

From the opposite wing Hamlet was indeed advanc- 
ing. Pinchas made a wild plunge forward, but Kloot’s 
grasp on his collar was still carefully firm. 

‘Who’s mutilating the poesy now?’ Kloot frowned 
angrily from under his peaked cap. ‘You'll spoil the 
scene.’ 

‘Peace, liar! You promised me your wife for 
Ophelia !’ 

Kloot’s frown relaxed into a smile. ‘Sure! The 
first wife I get you shall have.’ 

Pinchas gnashed his teeth. Goldwater’s voice rose 
in a joyous roulade. 

‘I think you owe me a car-fare,’ said Kloot sooth- 


ingly. 


330 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


Pinchas waved the rejoinder aside with his cane. 
‘Why does Hamlet sing?’ he demanded fiercely. 

‘Because it’s Passover,’ said Kloot. ‘You are a 
“greener”? in New York, otherwise you would know 
that it is a tradition to have musical plays on Passover. 
Our audiences wouldn’t stand for any other. You’re 
such an unreasonable cuss! Why else did we take 
your ‘‘Hamlet’’ for a Passover play?’ 

‘But “Hamlet” isn’t a musical play.’ 

‘Yes, itis! How about Ophelia’s songs? That was 
what decided us. Of course they needed eking out.’ 

‘But ‘‘Hamlet”’ is a tragedy!’ gasped Pinchas. 

‘Sure!’ said Kloot cheerfully. ‘They all die at 
the end. Our audiences would go away miserable if 
they didn’t. You wait till they’re dead, then you 
shall take your call.’ 

‘Take my call, for your play!’ 

‘There’s quite a lot of your lines left, if you listen 
carefully. Only you don’t understand stage technique. 
Oh, I’m not grumbling; we’re quite satisfied. The 
idea of adapting ‘‘Hamlet”’ for the Yiddish stage is 
yours, and it’s worth every cent we paid.’ 

A storm of applause gave point to the speaker’s 
words, and removed the last partition between the 
poet’s great mind and momentary madness. What! 
here was that ape of a Goldwater positively wallowing 
in admiration, while he, the mighty poet, had been 
cast into outer darkness and his work mocked and 


THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 331 


crucified! He put forth all his might, like Samson 
amid the Philistines, and leaving his coat-collar in 
Kloot’s hand, he plunged into the circle of light. Gold- 
water’s amazed face turned to meet him. 

‘Cutter of lines!’ The poet’s cane slashed across 
Hamlet’s right cheek near the right eye. ‘Perverter of 
poesy!’ It slashed across the left cheek near the left 
eye. 

The Prince of Palestine received each swish with a 
yell of pain and fear, and the ever-ready Kloot dropped 
the curtain on the tragic scene. 

Such hubbub and hullabaloo as rose on both sides of 
the curtain! Yet in the end the poet escaped scot- 
free. Goldwater was a coward, Kloot a sage. The 
same prudence that had led Kloot to exclude authors, 
saved him from magnifying their importance by police 
squabbles. Besides, a clever lawyer might prove the 
exclusion illegalk What was done was done. The 
dignity of the hero of a hundred dramas was best 
served by private beefsteaks and a rumoured version, 
irrefutable save in a court of law. It was bad enough 
that the Heathen Journalist should supply so graphic 
a picture of the midnight melodrama, coloured even 
more highly than Goldwater’s eyes. Kloot had been 
glad that the Journalist had left before the episode; but 
when he saw the account he wished the scribe had 
stayed. 

‘He won’t play Hamlet with that pair of shiners,’ 


332 THE YIDDISH ‘HAMLET’ 


Pinchas prophesied early the next morning to the sup- 
ping café. 

Radsikoff beamed and refilled Pinchas’s glass with 
champagne. He had carried out his promise of 
assisting at the premiére, and was now paying for the 
poet’s supper. 

‘Youre the first playwright Goldwater hasn’t 
managed to dodge,’ he chuckled. 

‘Ah!’ said the poet meditatively. ‘Action is greater 
than Thought. Action is the greatest thing in the 
world.’ 










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ie CONVERTS 


I 


As he sat on his hard stool in the whitewashed work- 
shop on the Bowery, clumsily pasting the flamboyant 
portrait on the boxes of the ‘Yvonne Rupert cigar,’ 
he wondered dully — after the first flush of joy at getting 
a job after weeks of hunger — at the strange fate that 
had again brought him into connection, however remote, 
with stageland. For even to Elkan Mandle, with his 
Ghetto purview, Yvonne Rupert’s fame, both as a 
‘Parisian’ star and the queen of American advertisers, 
had penetrated. Ever since she had summoned a Jew- 
ish florist for not paying her for the hundred and eleven 
bouquets with which a single week’s engagement in 
vaudeville had enabled her to supply him, the journals 
had continued to paragraph her amusing, self-puffing 
adventures. 

Not that there was much similarity between the New 
York star and his little actress of the humble Yiddish 
Theatre in London, save for that aureole of fluffy hair, 
which belonged rather to the genus than the individual. 
But as the great Yvonne’s highly-coloured charms went 
on repeating themselves from every box-cover he manip- 

335 


336 THE CONVERTS 


ulated (at seventy-five cents a hundred), the face of his 
own Gittel grew more and more vivid, till at last the 
whole splendid, shameful past began to rise up from its 
desolate tomb. 

He even lived through that prologue in the Ghetto 
garret, when, as benevolent master-tailor receiving the 
highest class work from S. Cohn’s in the Holloway 
Road, he was called upstairs to assist the penniless 
Polish immigrants. 

There she sat, the witching she-devil, perched on the 
rickety table just contributed to the home, a piquant, 
dark-eyed, yet golden-haired, mite of eleven, calm and 
comparatively spruce amid the wailing litter of parents 
and children. 

‘Settle this among yourselves,’ she seemed to be 
saying. ‘When the chairs are here I will sit on them; 
when the table is laid I will draw to; when the pious 
philanthropist provides the fire I will purr on the hearth.’ 

Ah, he had come forward as the pious philanthropist 
— pious enough then, Heaven knew. Why had Satan 
thrown such lures in the way of the reputable employer, 
the treasurer of ‘The Gates of Mercy’ Synagogue, 
with children of his own and the best wife in the world? 
Did he not pray every day to be delivered from the 
Satan Mekatrig?. Had he not meant it for the best 
when he took her into his workshop? It was only when, 
at the age of sixteen, Gittel Goldstein left the whirring 
machine-room for the more lucrative and laurelled 


THE CONVERTS 337 


position of heroine of Goldwater’s London Yiddish 
Theatre that he had discovered how this whimsical, 
coquettish creature had insinuated herself into his very 
being. 

Ah, madness, madness! that flight with her to 
America with all his savings, that desertion of his wife 
and children! But what delicious delirium that one 
year in New York, prodigal, reckless, ere, with the 
disappearance of his funds, she, too, disappeared. , 
And now, here he was — after nigh seven apathetic 
years, in which the need of getting a living was the 
only spur to living on — glad to take a woman’s place 
when female labour struck for five cents more a hun- 
dred. The old bitter tears came up to his eyes, blurring 
the cheerless scene, the shabby men and unlovely 
women with their red paste-pots, the medley of bare 
and coloured boxes, the long shelf of twine-balls. And 
as he wept, the vain salt drops moistened the pictures 
of Yvonne Rupert. 


II 


She became an obsession, this Franco-American 
singer and dancer, as he sat pasting and pasting, 
caressing her pictured face with sticky fingers. There 
were brief intervals of freedom from her image when 
he was ‘edging’ and ‘backing,’ or when he was lining 
the boxes with the plain paper; but Yvonne came 
twice on every box—once in large on the inside, 

Z 


338 THE CONVERTS 


once in small on the outside, with a giimmed projection 
to be stuck down after the cigars were in. He fell 
to recalling what he had read of her —the convent 
education that had kept her chaste and distinguished 
beneath all her stage deviltry, the long Lenten fasts 
she endured (as brought to light by the fishmonger’s 
bill she disputed in open court), the crucifix concealed 
upon her otherwise not too reticent person, the adorable 
French accent with which she enraptured the dudes, 
the palatial private car in which she traversed the 
States, with its little chapel giving on the bathroom; 
the swashbuckling Marquis de St. Roquiére, who 
had crossed the Channel after her, and the maid 
he had once kidnapped in mistake for the mis- 
tress; the diamond necklace presented by the Rajah 
of Singapuri, stolen at a soirée in San Francisco, and 
found afterwards as single stones in a low ‘hockshop’ 
in New Orleans. 

And despite all this glitter of imposing images a 
subconscious thought was forcing itself more and more 
clearly to the surface of his mind. That aureole of 
golden hair, those piquant dark eyes! The Yvonne 
the cheap illustrated papers had made him familiar 
with had lacked this revelation of colour! But, no, 
the idea was insane! 

This scintillating celebrity his lost Gittel! 

Bah! Misery had made him childish. Goldwater 
had, indeed, blossomed out since the days of his hired 


THE CONVERTS 339 


hall in Spitalfields, but his fame remained exclusively 
Yiddish and East-side. But Gittel! 

How could that obscure rush-light of the London 
Ghetto Theatre have blazed into the Star of Paris and 
New York? 

This Lent-keeping demoiselle the little Polish Jewess 
who had munched Passover cake at his table in the 
far-off happy days! This gilded idol the impecunious 
Gittel he had caressed ! 

‘You ever seen this Yvonne Rupert?’ he inquired 
of his neighbour, a pock-marked, spectacled young 
woman, who, as record-breaker of the establishment, 
had refused to join the strike of the mere hundred-and- 
fifty a day. 

The young woman swiftly drew a knife from the 
wooden pail beside her and deftly scraped at a rough 
hinge as she replied: ‘No, but I guess she’s the actress 
who gets all the flowers, and won’t pay for ’em.’ 

He saw she had mixed up the two lawsuits, but the 
description seemed to hit off his Gittel to the life. 
Yes, Gittel had always got all the flowers of life, and 
dodged paying. Ah, she had always been diabolically 
clever, unscrupulously ambitious! Who could put 
bounds to her achievement? She had used him and 
thrown him away — without a word, without a regret. 
She had washed her hands of him as light-heartedly 
as he washed his of the dirty, sticky day’s paste. What 
other ‘pious philanthropist’ had she found to replace 


340 THE CONVERTS 


him? Whither had she fled? Why not to Paris that 
her theatric gifts might receive training? 

This chic, this witchery, with which reputation 
credited her — had not Gittel possessed it all? Had 
not her heroines enchanted the Ghetto? 

Oh, but this was a wild day-dream, insubstantial as 
the smoke-wreaths of the Yvonne Rupert cigar ! 


III 


But the obsession persisted. In his miserable attic 
off Hester Street — that recalled the attic he had found 
her in, though it was many stories nearer the sky — he 
warmed himself with Gittel’s image, smiling, light- 
darting, voluptuous. Night and sleep surrendered 
him to grotesque combinations — Gittel Goldstein 
smoking cigarettes in a bath-room, Yvonne Rupert 
playing Yiddish heroines in a little chapel. 

In the clear morning these absurdities were forgotten 
in the realized absurdity of the initial identification. 
But a forenoon at the pasting-desk brought back the 
haunting thought. At noon he morbidly expended 
his lunch-dime on an ‘Yvonne Rupert’ cigar, and 
smoked it with a semi-insane feeling that he was re- 
possessing his Gittel. Certainly it was delicious. 

He wandered into the box-making room, where the 
man who tended the witty nail-driving machine was 
seated on a stack of Mexican cedar-wood, eating from 


THE CONVERTS 341 


a package of sausage and scrapple that sent sobering 
whiffs to the reckless smoker. 

‘You ever seen this Yvonne Rupert?’ he asked 
wistfully. 

‘Might as well ask if I’d smoked her cigar !’ grumbled 
the nailer through his mouthfuls. 

‘But there’s a gallery at Webster and Dixie’s.’ 

‘Su-er !” 

‘I guess I’ll go some day, just for curiosity.’ 

But the great Yvonne, he found, was flaming in her 
provincial orbit. So he must needs wait. 

Meantime, on a Saturday night, with a dirty two- 
dollar bill in his pocket, and jingling some odd cents, 
he lounged into the restaurant where the young Russian 
bloods assembled who wrote for the Yiddish Labour 
papers, and ‘knew it all.’ He would draw them out 
about Yvonne Rupert. He established himself near a 
table at which long-haired, long-fingered Freethinkers 
were drinking chocolate and discussing Lassalle. 

‘Ah, but the way he jumped on a table when only a 
schoolboy to protest against the master’s injustice to one 
of his schoolfellows! How the divine fire flamed in 
him ! 

They talked on, these clamorous sceptics, amplifying 
the Lassalle legend, broidering it with Messianic myths, 
with the same fantastic Oriental invention that had 
illuminated the plain Pentateuch with imaginative 
vignettes, and transfiguring the dry abstractions of 


342 THE CONVERTS 


Socialism with the same passionate personalization. 
He listened impatiently. He had never been caught 
by Socialism, even at his hungriest. He had once 
been an employer himself, and his point of view 
survived. 

They talked of the woman through whom Lassalle 
had met his death. One of them had seen her on the 
American stage — a bouncing burlesque actress. 

‘Like Yvonne Rupert?’ he ventured to interpose. 

‘Yvonne Rupert?’ They laughed. ‘Ah, if Yvonne 
had only had such a snap !’ cried Melchitsedek Pinchas. 
“To have jilted Lassalle and been died for! What an 
advertisement !’ 

‘It would have been on the bill,’ agreed the table. 

He asked if they thought Yvonne Rupert clever. 

‘Off the stage! There’s nothing to her on,’ said 
Pinchas. 

The table roared as if this were a good joke. ‘I 
dare say she would play my Ophelia as well as Mrs. 
Goldwater,’ Pinchas added zestfully. 

‘They say she has a Yiddish accent,’ Elkan ventured 
again. 

The table roared louder. ‘I have heard of Yiddish- 
Deutsch,’ cried Pinchas, ‘never of Yiddish-Frangais !’ 

Elkan Mandle was frozen. By his disappointment he 
knew that he had been hoping to meet Gittel again — 
that his resentment was dead. 


THE CONVERTS 3438 


IV 


But the hope would not die. He studied the theat- 
rical announcements, and when Yvonne Rupert once 
again flashed upon New York he set out to see her. 
But it struck him that the remote seat he could afford — 
for it would not do to spend a week’s wage on the mere 
chance — would be too far off for precise identification, 
especially as she would probably be theatrically trans- 
mogrified. No, a wiser as well as a more economical 
plan would be to meet her at the stage-door, as he used 
to meet Gittel. He would hang about till she came. 

It was a long ride to the Variety Theatre, and, the 
weather being sloppy, there was not even standing- 
room in the car, every foot of which, as it plunged and 
heaved ship-like through the watery night, was a suffo- 
cating jam of human beings, wedged on the seats, 
or clinging tightly to the overhead straps, or swarming 
like stuck flies on the fore and hind platforms, the 
squeeze and smell intensified by the shovings and 
writhings of damp passengers getting in and out, or 
by the desperate wriggling of the poor patient collector 
of fares boring his way through the very thick of the 
soldered mass. Elkan alighted with a headache, glad 
even of the cold rain that sprinkled his forehead. ‘The 
shining carriages at the door of the theatre filled him 
for once with a bitter revolt. But he dared not insinuate 
- himself among the white-wrapped, scented women and 


344 THE CONVERTS 


elegant cloaked men, though he itched to enter the 
portico and study the pictures of Yvonne Rupert, of 
which he caught a glimpse. He found his way instead 
to the stage-door, and took up a position that afforded 
him a complete view of the comers and goers, if only 
partial shelter from the rain. 

But the leaden hours passed without her, with endless 
fevers of expectation, heats followed by chills. The 
performers came and went, mostly on foot, and strange 
nondescript men and women passed too through the 
jealously-guarded door. 

He was drenched to the skin with accumulated 
drippings ere a smart brougham drove up, a smart 
groom opened an umbrella, and a smart — an unimagi- 
nably smart — Gittel Goldstein alighted. 

Yes, the incredible was true! 

Beneath that coquettish veil, under the aureole of 
hair, gleamed the piquant eyes he had kissed so often. 

He remained petrified an instant, dazed and staring. 
She passed through the door the groom held open. 
The doorkeeper, from his pigeon-hole, handed her some 
letters. Yes, he knew every trick of the shoulders, 
every turn of the neck. She stood surveying the 
envelopes. As the groom let the door swing back and 
turned away, he rushed forward and pushed it open 
again. 

‘Gittel !’ he cried chokingly. ‘Gittel!’ 

She turned with a quick jerk of the head, and in 


THE CONVERTS 345 


her flushed, startled face he read consciousness if not 
_ recognition. The reek of her old cherry-blossom 
smote from her costlier garments, kindling a thousand 
passionate memories. 

‘Knowest thou me not?’ he cried in Yiddish. 

In a flash her face, doubly veiled, was a haughty 
stare. 

‘Who is zis person?’ she asked the doorkeeper in 
her charming French-English. 

He reverted to English. 

‘T am Elkan, your own Elkan!’ 

Ah, the jostle of sweet and bitter memories. So 
near, so near again! The same warm seductive witch. 
He strove to take her daintily-gloved hand. 

She shrank back shudderingly and thrust open the 
door that led to the dressing-rooms beside the stage. 

‘Ze man is mad, lunatic!’ And she disappeared 
with that delicious shrug of the shoulders that had cap- 
tivated the States. 

Insensate fury overcame him. What! This creature 
who owed all this glory to his dragging her away from 
the London Ghetto Theatre, this heartless, brazen 
minx who had been glad to nestle in his arms, was to 
mock him like this, was to elude him again! He made 
a dash after her; the doorkeeper darted from his little 
room, but was hurled aside in a swift, mad tussle, and 
Elkan, after a blind, blood-red instant, found himself 
blinking and dripping in the centre of the stage, facing 


346 THE CONVERTS 


a great roaring audience, tier upon tier. Then he be- 
came aware of a pair of eccentric comedians whose 
scene he had interrupted, and who had not sufficient 
presence of mind to work him into it, so that the au- 
dience which had laughed at his headlong entrance now 
laughed the louder over its own mistake. 

But its delightful moment of sensational suspense 
was brief. In a twinkling the doorkeeper’s vengeful 
hands were on the intruder’s collar. 

‘I want Yvonne Rupert!’ shrieked Elkan struggling. 
‘She is mine — mine! She loved me once!’ 

A vaster wave of laughter swept back to him as 
he was hauled off, to be handed over to a policeman 
on a charge of brawling and assaulting the doorkeeper. 


V 


As he lay in his cell he chewed the cud of revenge. 
Yes, let them take him before the magistrate; it was 
not he that was afraid of justice. He would expose 
her, the false Catholic, the she-cat! A pretty convert! 
Another man would have preferred to blackmail her, 
he told himself with righteous indignation, especially 
in such straits of poverty. But he — the thought had 
scarcely crossed his mind. He had not even thought of 
her helping him, only of the joy of meeting her again. 

In the chill morning, after a sleepless night, he had 
a panic-stricken sense of his insignificance under the 
crushing weight of law and order. All the strength 


THE CONVERTS 347 


born of bitterness oozed out as he stood before the 
magistrate rigidly and heard the charge preferred. 
He had a despairing vision of Yvonne Rupert, mocking, 
inaccessible, even before he was asked his occupation. 

‘In a cigar-box factory,’ he replied curtly. 

‘Ah, you make cigar-boxes ?’ 

‘No, not exactly. I paste.’ 

‘Paste what ?’ 

He hesitated. ‘Pictures of Yvonne Rupert on the 
boxes.’ 

‘Ah! Then it is the “Yvonne Rupert”’ cigar?’ 

‘Yes.’ He had divined the court’s complacent 
misinterpretation ere he saw its smile; the facile 
theory that brooding so much over her fascinating 
picture had unhinged his brain. From that moment 
a hardness came over his heart. He shut his lips 
grimly. What was the use of talking? Whatever 
he said would be discredited on this impish theory. 
And, even without it, how incredible his story, how 
irrelevant to the charge of assaulting the doorkeeper ! 

‘I was drunk,’ was all he would say. He was com- 
mitted for trial, and, having no one to bail him out, 
lingered in a common cell with other reprobates till the 
van brought him to the Law Court, and he came up to 
justice in an elevator under the rebuking folds of the 
Stars and Stripes. A fortnight’s more confinement 
was all that was meted out to him, but he had already 
had time enough to reflect that he had given Yvonne 


348 THE CONVERTS 


Rupert one of the best advertisements of her life. 
It would have enhanced the prisoner’s bitterness had 
he known, as the knowing world outside knew, that 
he was a poor devil in Yvonne Rupert’s pay, and that 
New York was chuckling over the original and ingenious 
dodge by which she had again asserted her sovereignty 
as an advertiser — delicious, immense! 


VI 


Short as his term of imprisonment was, it coincided, 
much to his own surprise, with the Jewish Penitential 
period, and the Day of Atonement came in the middle. 
A wealthy Jewish philanthropist had organized a 
prison prayer-service, and Elkan eagerly grasped at 
the break in the monotony. Several of the prisoners 
who posed as Jews with this same motive were detected 
and reprimanded; but Elkan felt, with the new grim 
sense of humour that meditation on Yvonne Rupert 
and the world she fooled was developing in him, that 
he was as little of a Jew as any of them. This elope- 
ment to America had meant a violent break with his 
whole religious past. Not once had he seen the inside 
of an American synagogue. Gittel had had no use for 
synagogues. 

He entered the improvised prayer-room with this 
ironic sense of coming back to Judaism by the Christian 
prison door. But the service shook him terribly. 
He forgot even to be amused by the one successful 


THE CONVERTS 349 


impostor who had landed himself in an unforeseen 
deprivation of rations during the whole fast day. 
The passionate outcries of the old-fashioned Chazan, 
the solemn peals and tremolo notes of the cornet, 
which had once been merely esthetic effects to the 
reputable master cutter, were now surcharged with 
doom and chastisement. The very sight of the Hebrew 
books and scrolls touched a thousand memories of home 
and innocence. 

Ah, God, how he had sinned! 

‘Forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!’ 
he cried, smiting his breast and rocking to and fro. 

His poor deserted wife and children! How terrible 
for Haigitcha to wake up one morning and find him 
gone! As terrible as for him to wake up one morning 
and find Gittel gone. Ah, God had indeed paid him 
in kind! Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. 

The philanthropist himself preached the sermon. 
God could never forgive sins till the sinner had first 
straightened out the human wrongs. 

Ah, true, true! If he could only find his family 
again. If he could try by love and immeasurable 
devotion to atone for the past. Then again life would 
have a meaning and an aim. Poor, poor Haigitcha! 
How he would weep over her and cherish her. And 
his children! They must be grown up. Yankely must 
be quite a young man. Yes, he would be seventeen 
by now. And Rachel, that pretty, clinging cherub! 


850 THE CONVERTS 


In all those years he had not dared to let his thoughts 
pause upon them. His past lay like a misty dream 
behind those thousand leagues of ocean. But now it 
started up in all the colours of davlight, warm, appeal- 
ing. Yes, he would go back to his dear ones who must 
still crave his love and guidance; he would plead and 
be forgiven, and end his days piously at the sacred 
hearth of duty. 

‘Forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!’ 

If only he could get back to old England. 

He appealed to the philanthropist, and lied amid 
all his contrition. It was desperation at the severance 
from his wife and children that had driven him to 
drink, lust of gold that had spurred him across the 
Atlantic. Now a wiser and sadder man, he would be 
content with a modicum and the wife of his bosom. 


VII 


He arrived at last, with a few charity coins in his 
pocket, in the familiar Spitalfields alley, guarded by 
the three iron posts over which he remembered his 
Yankely leaping. His heart was full of tears and 
memories. Ah, there was the butcher’s shop still 
underneath the old apartment, with the tin labels stuck 
in the kosher meat, and there was Gideon, the fat, 
genial butcher, flourishing his great carving-knife as 
of yore, though without that ancient smile of brotherly 
recognition. Gideon’s frigidity chilled him; it was 


THE CONVERTS 361 


an inauspicious omen, a symptom of things altered, 
irrevocable. 

“Does Mrs. Mandle still live here?’ he asked with a 
horrible heart-sinking. | 

“Yes, first floor,’ said Gideon, staring. 

Ah, how his heart leapt up again! MHaigitcha, his 
dear Haigitcha! He went up the ever-open dusty 
staircase, jostling against a spruce, handsome young 
fellow who was hurrying down. He looked back with 
a sudden conviction that it was his son. His heart 
swelled with pride and affection; but ere he could cry 
“Yankely’ the young fellow was gone. He heard 
the whirr of machines. Yes, she had kept on the 
workshop, the wonderful creature, though crippled by 
his loss and the want of capital. Doubtless S. Cohn’s 
kind-hearted firm had helped her to tide over the crisis. 
Ah, what a blackguard he had been! And she had 
brought up the children unaided. Dear Haigitcha! 
What madness had driven him from her side? But 
he would make amends — yes, he would make amends. 
He would slip again into his own niche, take up the 
old burdens and the old delights — perhaps even be 
again treasurer of ‘The Gates of Mercy.’ 

He knocked at the door. Haigitcha herself opened 
it. 

He wanted to cry her name, but the word stuck in 
his throat. For this was not his Haigitcha; this was 
a new creature, cold, stern, tragic, prematurely aged, 


352 THE CONVERTS 


framed in the sombre shadows of the staircase. And 
in her eyes was neither rapture nor remembrance. 

‘What is it?’ she asked. 

‘Iam Elkan; don’t you know me?’ 

She stared with a little gasp, and a heaving of the 
flat breasts. ‘Then she said icily: ‘And what do you 
~ want?’ 

‘I am come back,’ he muttered hearsely in Yiddish. 

‘And where is Gittel?’ she answered in the same 
idiom. 

The needles of the whirring machines seemed piercing 
through his brain. So London knew that Gittel had 
been the companion of his flight! He hung his head. 

‘I was only with her one year,’ he whispered. 

‘Then go back to thy dung-heap!’ She shut the 
door. 

He thrust his foot in desperately ere it banged to. 
‘Haigitcha!’ he shrieked. ‘Let me come in. Forgive 
me, forgive me!’ 

It was a tug-of-war. He forced open the door; he 
had a vision of surprised ‘hands’ stopping their ma- 
chines, of a beautiful, startled girl holding the ends of 
' a half-laid tablecloth — his Rachel, oh, his Rachel! 

‘Open the window, one of you!’ panted Haigitcha, 
her shoulders still straining against the door. ‘Call a 
policeman — the man is drunk!’ 

He staggered back, his pressure relaxed, the door 
slammed. This repetition of his ‘Yvonne Rupert’ 


THE CONVERTS 353 


experience sobered him effectually. What right, 
indeed, had he to force himself upon this woman, upon 
these children, to whom he was dead? So might a 
suicide hope to win back his place in the old life. 
Life had gone on without him — had no need of him. 
Ah, what a punishment God had prepared for him! 
Closed doors to the past, closed doors everywhere. 

And this terrible sense of exclusion had not now the 
same palliative of righteous resentment. With Yvonne 
Rupert, the splendid-flaming, vicious ingrate, he had 
felt himself the sinned against. But before this wife- 
widow, this dutiful, hard-working, tragic creature, 
he had nothing but self-contempt. He tottered down- 
stairs. How should he even get his bread — he whose 
ill-fame was doubtless the gossip of the Ghetto? If 
he could only get hold of Gideon’s carving-knife ! 


Vill 


But he did not commit suicide, nor did he starve. 
There is always one last refuge for the failures of the 
Ghetto, and Elkan’s easy experience with the Jewish 
philanthropist had prepared the way for dealings 
with the Christian. 

To-day the Rev. Moses Elkan, ‘the converted Jew,’ 
preaches eloquently to his blind brethren who never 
come to hear him. For he has ‘found the light.’ 
Exeter Hall’s exposition of the Jewish prophecies has 
opened his eyes, and though his foes have been those 


2A 


354 THE CONVERTS 


of his own household, yet, remembering the terrible 
text, ‘He that loveth son or daughter more than Me 
is not worthy of Me,’ he has taken up his cross and 
followed after Christ alone. 

And even if the good souls for whose thousands of 
pounds he is the annual interest should discover his 
true past — through this tale-bearer or another —is 
there not but the more joy over the sinner that re- 
penteth ? 

Duties neglected, deadly sins trailing in the actual 
world their unchangeable irreversible consequences — 
all this is irrelevant. He has ‘found the light.’ 

And so, while Haigitcha walks in darkness, Yvonne 
prays in her chapel and Elkan preaches in his church. 


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HOLY WEDEOCK 


I 


WHEN Schneemann, the artist, returned from Rome 
to his native village in Galicia, he found it humming 
with gossip concerning his paternal grandmother, 
universally known as the Bube Yenta. It would seem 
that the giddy old thing hobbled home from synagogue 
conversing with Yossel Mandelstein, the hunchback, 
and sometimes even offered the unshapely septua- 
genarian her snuff-box as he passed the door of her 
cottage. More than one village censor managed to 
acquaint the artist with the flirtation ere he had found 
energy to walk the muddy mile to her dwelling. Even 
his own mother came out strongly in disapproval 
of the ancient dame; perhaps the remembrance of 
how fanatically her mother-in-law had disapproved 
of her married head for not being shrouded in a pious 
wig lent zest to her tongue. ‘The artist controlled his 
facial muscles, having learnt tolerance and Bohemian- 
ism in the Eternal City. 

‘Old blood will have its way,’ he said blandly. 

“Yes, old blood’s way is sometimes worse than 
young blood’s,’ said Frau Schneemann, unsmiling. 

357 


358 HOLY WEDLOCK 


‘You must not forget that Yossel is still a bach- 
elor.’ 

‘Yes, and therefore a sinner in Israel — I remember,’ 
quoth the artist with a twinkle. How all this would 
amuse his bachelor friends, Leopold Barstein and 
Rozenoffski the pianist ! 

‘Make not mock. ’Tis high time you, too, should 
lead a maiden under the Canopy.’ 

‘I am so shy — there are few so forward as grand- 
mother.’ 

‘Heaven be thanked!’ said his mother fervently. 
‘When I refused to cover my tresses she spoke as if 
I were a brazen Epicurean, but I had rather have died 
than carry on so shamelessly with a man to whom I 
was not betrothed.’ 

‘Perhaps they are betrothed.’ ar | 

‘We betrothed to Yossel! May his name be blotted 
out !’ 

‘Why, what is wrong with Yossel? Moses Mendels- 
sohn himself had a hump.’ 

“Who speaks of humps? Have you Ai we 
are of Rabbinic family?’ 

Her son had quite forgotten it, as he had forgotten 
so much of this naive life to which he was paying a 
holiday visit. 

‘Ah yes,’ he murmured. ‘But Yossel is pious — 
surely?’ A vision of the psalm-droners and prayer- | 
shriekers in the little synagogue, among whom the 


HOLY WEDLOCK 359 


hunchback had been conspicuous, surged up viv- 
idly. 

‘He may shake himself from dawn-service to night- 
service, he will never shake off his father, the inn- 
keeper,’ said Frau Schneemann hotly. ‘If I were in 
your grandmother’s place I would be weaving my 
shroud, not thinking of young men.’ 

‘But she’s thinking of old men, you said.’ 

‘Compared with her he is young —she is eighty- 
four, he is only seventy-five.’ 

‘Well, they won’t be married long,’ he laughed. 

Frau Schneemann laid her hand on his mouth. 

“Heaven forbid the omen,’ she cried. ‘’Tis bringing 
a Bilbul (scandal) upon a respectable family.’ 

‘I will go and talk to her,’ he said gravely. ‘Indeed, 
I ought to have gone to see her days ago.’ And as he 
trudged to the other end of the village towards the 
cottage where the lively old lady lived in self-sufficient 
solitude, he was full of the contrast between his mother’s 
mental world and his own. People live in their own 
minds, and not in streets or fields, he philosophized. 


II 


Through her diamond-paned window he saw the 
wrinkled, white-capped old creature spinning peace- 
fully at the rustic chimney-corner, a pure cloistral 
crone. It seemed profane to connect such a figure 
with flirtation— this was surely the very virgin of 


360 HOLY WEDLOCK 


* senility. What a fine picture she made too! Why had 
he never thought of painting her? Yes, such a pic- 
ture of ‘The Spinster’ would be distinctly interesting. 
And he would put in the Kesubah, the marriage cer- 
tificate that hung over the mantelpiece, in ironical 
reminder of her days of bloom. He unlatched the 
door — he had never been used to knock at grannie’s 
door, and the childish instinct came back to him. 

‘Guten Abend,’ he said. 

She adjusted a pair of horn spectacles, and peered at 
him. 

‘Guten Abend,’ she murmured. 

‘You don’t remember me — Vroomkely.’ He used 
the old childish diminutive of Abraham, though he had 
almost forgotten he owned the name in full. 

‘Vroomkely,’ she gasped, almost overturning her 
wheel as she sprang to hug him in her skinny arms. 
He had a painful sense that she had shrunk back 
almost to childish dimensions. Her hands seemed 
trembling as much with decay as with emotion. She 
hastened to produce from the well-known cupboard 
home-made Kuchen and other dainties of his youth, 
with no sense of the tragedy that lay in his no longer 
being tempted by them. 

‘And how goes your trade?’ she said. ‘They say 
you have never been slack. They must build many 
houses in Rome.’ Her notion that he was a house 
painter he hardly cared to contradict, especially as 


HOLY WEDLOCK 361 


picture-painting was contrary to the Mosaic dispensa- 
tion. 

‘Oh, I haven’t been only in Rome,’ he said evasively. 
‘I have been in many lands.’ 

Fire came into her eyes, and flashed through the big 
spectacles. ‘You have been to Palestine?’ she cried. 

‘No, only as far as Egypt. Why?’ 

‘I thought you might have brought me a clod of 
Palestine earth to put in my grave.’ The fire died out 
of her spectacles, she sighed, and took a consolatory 
pinch of snuff. 

‘Don’t talk of graves — you will live to be a hundred 
and more,’ he cried. But he was thinking how ridicu- 
lous gossip was. It spared neither age nor sexlessness, 
not even this shrivelled ancient who was meditating on 
her latter end. Suddenly he became aware of a shadow 
darkening the doorway. At the same instant the fire 
leapt back into his grandmother’s glasses. Instinc- 
tively, almost before he turned his head, he knew it was 
the hero of the romance. 

Yossel Mandelstein looked even less of a hero than 
the artist had remembered. There had been some- 
thing wistful and pathetic in the hunchback’s expression, 
some hint of inner eager fire, but this —if he had not 
merely imagined it — seemed to have died of age and 
hopelessness. He used crutches, too, to help himself 
along with, so that he seemed less the hunchback of 
yore than the conventional contortion of time, and but 


362. HOLY WEDLOCK 


for the familiar earlocks pendent on either side of the 
fur cap, but for the great hooked nose and the small 
chin hidden in the big beard, the artist might have 
doubted if this was indeed the Yossel he had sometimes 
mocked at in the crude cruelty of boyhood. 

Yossel, propped on his crutches, was pulling out a 
mouldering black-covered book from under his greasy 
caftan. ‘I have brought you back your Chovoth 
Halvovoth,’ he said. 

In the vivid presence of the actual romance the 
artist could not suppress the smile he had kept back 
at the mere shadowy recital. In Rome he himself had 
not infrequently called on young ladies by way of 
returning books to them. It was true that the books 
he returned were not Hebrew treatises, but he smiled ” 
again to think that the name of Yossel’s volume sig- 
nified ‘the duties of the heart.’ The Bube Yenta 
received the book with thanks, and a moment of 
embarrassment ensued, only slightly mitigated by the 
offer of the snuff-box. Yossel took a pinch, but his 
eyes seemed roving in amaze, less over the stranger 
than over the bespread table, as though he might 
unaccountably have overlooked some sacred festival. 
That two are company and three none seemed at this 
point a proverb to be heeded, and without waiting to 
renew the hero’s acquaintance, the artist escaped from 
the idyllic cottage. Let the lover profit by the pastry 
for which he himself was too old. 


MOLY |WEDLOCK: 363 


So the gossips spoke the truth, he thought, his amuse- 
ment not unblended with a touch of his mother’s 
indignation. Surely, if his grandmother wished to 
cultivate a grand passion, she might have chosen a 
more sightly object of devotion. Not that there was 
much to be said for Yossel’s taste either. When after 
seventy-five years of celibacy the fascinations of the 
other sex began to tell upon him, he might at least 
have succumbed to a less matriarchal form of femi- 
ninity. But perhaps his grandmother had fascinations 
of another order. Perhaps she had money. He put 
the question to his mother. 

‘Certainly she has money,’ said his mother vin- 
dictively. ‘She has thousands of Gudden in her stock- 
ing. ‘Twenty years ago she could have had her pick 
of a dozen well-to-do widowers, yet now that she has 
one foot in the grave, madness has entered her soul, and 
she has cast her eye upon this pauper.’ 

‘But I thought his father left him his inn,’ said the 
artist. 

‘His inn—yes. His sense—no. Yossel ruined 
himself long ago paying too much attention to the 
Talmud instead of his business. He was always a 
Schlemthl.’ 

‘But can one pay too much attention to the Talmud? 
That is a strange saying for a Rabbi’s daughter.’ 

‘King Solomon tells us there is a time for every- 
thing,’ returned the Rabbi’s daughter. ‘Yossel neg- 


364 HOLY WEDLOCK 


lected what the wise King said, and so now he comes 
trying to wheedle your poor grandmother out of her 
money. If he wanted to marry, why didn’t he marry 
before eighteen, as the Talmud prescribes ?’ 

‘He seems to do everything at the wrong time,’ 
laughed her son. ‘Do you suppose, by the way, that 
King Solomon made all his thousand marriages before 
he was eighteen?’ 

‘Make not mock of holy things,’ replied his mother 
angrily. 

The monetary explanation of the romance, he found, 
was the popular one in the village. It did not, how- 
ever, exculpate the grandame from the charge of 
forwardness, since if she wished to contract another 
marriage it could have been arranged legitimately by 
the Shadchan, and then the poor marriage-broker, 
who got little enough to do in this God-forsaken village, 
might have made a few Gulden out of it. 

Beneath all his artistic perception of the humours 
of the thing, Schneemann found himself prosaically 
sharing the general disapprobation of the marriage. 
Really, when one came to think of it, it was ridiculous 
that he should have a new grandfather thrust upon 
him. And such a grandfather! Perhaps the Bube 
was, indeed, losing her reason. Or was it he himself 
who was losing his reason, taking seriously this paro- 
chial scandal, and believing that because a doddering 
hunchback of seventy-five had borrowed an ethical 


HOLY WEDLOCK 365 


treatise from an octogenarian a marriage must be on 
the tapis? Yet, on more than one occasion, he came 
upon circumstances which seemed to justify the popu- 
lar supposition. There could be no doubt, for ex- 
ample, that when at the conclusion of the synagogue 
service the feminine stream from the women’s gallery 
poured out to mingle with the issuing males, these 
two atoms drifted together with unnatural celerity. 
It appeared to be established beyond question that on 
the preceding Feast of Tabernacles the Bube had lent 
and practically abandoned to the hunchback’s use 
the ritual palm-branch he was too poor to afford. Of 
course this might only have been gratitude, inasmuch 
as a fortnight earlier on the solemn New Year Day 
when, by an untimely decree, the grandmother lay ill 
abed, Yossel had obtained possession of the Shojar, 
and leaving the synagogue had gone to blow it to her. 
He had blown the holy horn — with due regard to 
the proprieties —in the downstairs room of her cot- 
. tage so that she above had heard it, and having heard 
it could breakfast. It was a performance that charity 
reasonably required for a disabled fellow-creature, and 
yet what medieval knight had found a more delicate 
way of trumpeting his mistress’s charms? Besides, 
how had Yossel known that the heroine was ill? His 
eye must have roved over the women’s gallery, and 
disentangled her absence even from the huddled mass 
of weeping and swaying womanhood. 


366 HOLY WEDLOCK 


One day came the crowning item of evidence. The 
grandmother had actually asked the village postman 
to oblige her by delivering a brown parcel at Yossel’s 
lodgings. The postman was not a Child of the Cove- 
nant, but Yossel’s landlady was, and within an hour all 
Jewry knew that Yenta had sent Yossel a phylacteries- 
bag — the very symbol of love offered by a maiden to 
her bridegroom. Could shameless passion further go? 


It 


The artist, at least, determined it should go no 
further. He put on his hat, and went to find Yossel 
Mandelstein. But Yossel was not to be found so easily, 
and the artist’s resolution strengthened with each false 
scent. Yossel was ultimately run to earth, or rather to 
Heaven, in the Beth Hamedrash, where he was shaking 
himself studiously over a Babylonian folio, in company 
with a motley assemblage of youths and greybeards 
equally careless of the demands of life. The dusky 
home of holy learning seemed an awkward place in 
which to broach the subject of love. In a whisper he 
besought the oscillating student to come outside. 
Yossel started up in agitation. 

‘Ah, your grandmother is dying,’ he divined, with 
what seemed a lover’s inaccuracy. ‘I will come and 
pray at once.’ 

‘No, no, she is not dying,’ said Schneemann hastily, 
adding in a grim murmur, ‘unless of love.’ 


HOLY WEDLOCK 367 


‘Oh, then, it is not about your grandmother ?’ 

‘No — that is to say, yes.’ It seemed more difficult 
than ever to plunge into the delicate subject. To 
refer plumply to the courtship would, especially if it 
were not true, compromise his grandmother and, 
incidentally, her family. Yet, on the other hand, he 
longed to know what lay behind all this philandering, 
which in any case had been compromising her, and 
he felt it his duty as his grandmother’s protector and 
the representative of the family to ask Yossel straight 
out whether his intentions were honourable. 

He remembered scenes in novels and plays in which 
undesirable suitors were tackled by champions of 
convention — scenes in which they were even bought 
off and started in new lands. Would not Yossel go 
to a new land, and how much would he want over and 
above his fare? He led the way without. 

‘You have lived here all your life, Yossel, have you 
not?’ he said, when they were in the village street. 

“Where else shall a man live?’ answered Yossel. 

‘But have you never had any curiosity to see other 
parts? Would you not like to go and see Vienna?’ 

A little gleam passed over Yossel’s dingy face. 
‘No, not Vienna — it is an unholy place — but Prague! 
Prague where there is a great Rabbi and the old, 
old underground synagogue that God has preserved 
throughout the generations.’ 

“Well, why not go and see it?’ suggested the artist. 


368 HOLY WEDLOCK 


Yossel stared. ‘Is it for that you tore me away 
from my Talmud ?’ 

‘N—no, not exactly for that,’ stammered Schnee- 
mann. ‘Only seeing you glued to it gave me the idea 
what a pity it was that you should not travel and sit 
at the feet of great Rabbis.’ | 

‘But how shall I travel to them? My crutches 
cannot walk so far as Prague.’ 

‘Oh, I’d lend you the money to ride,’ od the artist 
lightly. 

‘But I could never repay it.’ 

‘You can repay me in Heaven. You can give me 
a little bit of your Gan Iden’ (Paradise). 

Yossel shook his head. ‘And after I had the fare, 
how should I live? Here I make a few Gulden by 
writing letters for people to their relatives in America; 
in Prague everybody is very learned; they don’t need 
a scribe. Besides, if I cannot die in Palestine I might 
as well die where I was born.’ 

‘But why can’t you die in Palestine?’ cried the 
artist with a new burst of hope. ‘You shall die in 
Palestine, I promise you.’ 

The gleam in Yossel’s face became a great flame of 
joy. ‘I shall die in Palestine?’ he asked ecstatically. 

‘As sure as I live! I will pay your fare the whole 
way, second class.’ 

For a moment the dazzling sunshine continued on 
Yossel’s face, then a cloud began to pass across it. 


HOLY WEDLOCK 369 


‘But how can I take your money? I am not a 
Schnorrer.’ 

Schneemann did not find the question easy to answer. 
The more so as Yossel’s eagerness to go and die in 
Palestine seemed to show that there was no reason for 
packing him off. However, he told himself that one 
must make assurance doubly sure and that, even if it 
was all empty gossip, still he had stumbled upon a way 
of making an old man happy. 

“There is no reason why you should take my money,’ 
he said with an artistic inspiration, ‘but there is every 
reason why I should buy to myself the Mitzvah (good 
deed) of sending you to Jerusalem. You see, I have 
so few good deeds to my credit.’ 

‘So I have heard,’ replied Yossel placidly. ‘A very 
wicked life it is said you lead at Rome.’ 

‘Most true,’ said the artist cheerfully. 

‘It is said also that you break the Second Com- 
mandment by making representations of things that 
are on sea and land.’ 

‘I would the critics admitted as much,’ murmured 
the artist. 

“Your grandmother does not understand. She thinks 
you paint houses — which is not forbidden. But I don’t 
undeceive her —it would pain her too much.’ The 
lover-like sentiment brought back the artist’s alarm. 

“When will you be ready to start?’ he said. 

Yossel pondered. ‘But to die in Palestine one 

2B 


370 HOLY WEDLOCK 


must live in Palestine,’ he said. ‘I cannot be certain 
that God would take my soul the moment I set foot 
on the holy soil.’ 

The artist reflected a moment, but scarcely felt rich 
enough to guarantee that Yossel should live in Pales- 
tine, especially if he were an unconscionably long 
time a-dying. A happy thought came to him. ‘But 
there is the Chalukah,’ he reminded Yossel. 

‘But that is charity.’ 

‘No —it is not charity, it is a sort of university 
endowment. It is just to support such old students 
as you that these sums are sent from all the world over. 
The prayers and studies of our old men in Jerusalem 
are a redemption to all Israel. And yours would be 
to me in particular.’ 

‘True, true,’ said Yossel eagerly; ‘and life is very 
cheap there, I have always heard.’ 

‘Then it is a bargain,’ slipped unwarily from the 
artist’s tongue. But Yossel replied simply: 

‘May the blessings of the Eternal be upon you for 
ever and for ever, and by the merit of my prayers in 
Jerusalem may your sins be forgiven.’ 

The artist was moved. Surely, he thought, strug- 
gling between tears and laughter, no undesirable lover 
had ever thus been got rid of by the head of the family. 
Not to speak of an undesirable grandfather. 


HOLY WEDLOCK 371 


IV 


The news that Yossel was leaving the village bound 
for the Holy Land, produced a sensation which quite 
obscured his former notoriety as an aspirant to wedlock. 
Indeed, those who discussed the new situation most 
avidly forgot how convinced they had been that mar- 
riage and not death was the hunchback’s goal. How 
Yossel had found money for the great adventure was 
not the least interesting ingredient in the cup of gossip. 
It was even whispered that the grandmother herself 
had been tapped. Her skittish advances had been 
taken seriously by Yossel. He had boldly proposed 
to lead her under the Canopy, but at this point, it was 
said, the old lady had drawn back — she who had led 
him so far was not to be thus led. Women are change- 
able, it is known, and even when they are old they do 
not change. But Yossel had stood up for his rights; 
he had demanded compensation. And his fare to 
Palestine was a concession for his injured affections. 
It was not many days before the artist met persons 
who had actually overheard the bargaining between 
the Bube and the hunchback. 

Meantime Yossel’s departure was drawing nigh, and 
all those who had relatives in Palestine besieged him 
from miles around, plying him with messages, bene- 
dictions, and even packages for their kinsfolk. And 
conversely, there was scarcely a Jewish inhabitant 


372 HOLY WEDLOCK 


who had not begged for clods of Palestine earth or 
bottles of Jordan water. So great indeed were the 
demands that their supply would have constituted a 
distinct invasion of the sovereign rights of the Sultan, 
and dried up the Jordan. 

With his grandmother’s future thus off his mind, 
the artist had settled down to making a picture of 
the ruined castle which he commanded from his bed- 
room window. But when the through ticket for 
Jerusalem came from the agent at Vienna, and he had 
brazenly endured Yossel’s blessings for the same, 
his artistic instinct demanded to see how the Bube 
was taking her hero’s desertion. As he lifted the latch 
he heard her voice giving orders, and the door opened, 
not on the peaceful scene he expected of the spinster 
at her ingle nook, but of a bustling and apparently 
rejuvenated old lady supervising a packing menial. 
The greatest shock of all was that this menial proved 
to be Yossel himself squatted on the floor, his crutches 
beside him. Almost as in guilty confusion the hunch- 
back hastily closed the sheet containing a huddle of 
articles, and tied it into a bundle before the artist’s 
chaotic sense of its contents could change into clarity. 
But instantly a flash of explanation came to him. 

‘Aha, grandmother,’ he said, ‘I see you too are 
sending presents to Palestine.’ 

The grandmother took snuff uneasily. ‘Yes, it is 
going to the Land of Israel,’ she said. 


HOLY WEDLOCK 373 


As the artist lifted his eyes from the two amorphous 
heaps on the floor — Yossel and his bundle — he became 
aware of a blank in the familiar interior. 

‘Why, where is the spinning-wheel?”’ he cried. 

‘I have given it to the widow Rubenstein — I shall 
spin no more.’ 

‘And I thought of painting you as a spinster!’ 
he murmured dolefully. Then a white patch in 
the darkened wood over the mantelpiece caught 
his eye. ‘Why, your marriage certificate is gone 
too!’ 

‘Yes, I have taken it down.’ 

“To give to the widow Rubenstein ?’ 

‘What an idea!’ said his grandmother seriously. 
‘It is in the bundle.’ 

“You are sending it away to Palestine?’ 

The grandmother fumbled with her spectacles, and 
removing them with trembling fingers blinked down- 
wards at the bundle. Yossel snatched up his crutches, 
and propped himself manfully upon them. 

“Your grandmother goes with me,’ he explained 
decisively. 

‘What!’ the artist gasped. 

The grandmother’s eyes met his_ unflinchingly; 
they had drawn fire from Yossel’s. ‘And why should 
I not go to Palestine too?’ she said. 

‘But you are so old!’ 

‘The more reason I should make haste if I am to be 


374 HOLY WEDLOCK 


luckier than Moses our Master.’ She readjusted her 
spectacles firmly. 

‘But the journey is so hard.’ 

‘Yossel has wisdom; he will find the way while 
alive as easily as others will roll thither after death.’ 

‘You'll be dead before you get there,’ said the 
artist brutally. 

‘Ah, no! God will not let me die before I touch the 
holy soil!’ 

‘You, too, want to die in Palestine?’ cried the 
amazed artist. 

‘And where else shall a daughter of Israel desire to 
die? Ah, I forgot — your mother was an Epicurean 
with godless tresses; she did not bring you up in the 
true love of our land. But every day for seventy 
years and more have I prayed the prayer that my eyes 
should behold the return of the Divine Glory to Zion. 
That mercy I no longer expect in my own days, inas- 
much as the Sultan hardens his heart and will not 
give us back our land, not though Moses our Master 
appears to him every night, and beats him with his rod. 
But at. least my eyes shall behold the land of Israel.’ 

‘Amen!’ said Yossel, still propped assertively on 
his crutches. The grandson turned upon the inter- 
rupter. ‘But you can’t take her with you?’ 

‘Why not?’ said Yossel calmly. 

Schneemann found himself expatiating upon the 
responsibility of looking after such an old woman; it 


HOLY WEDLOCK 375 


seemed too absurd to talk of the scandal. That was 
left for the grandmother to emphasize. 

“Would you have me arrive alone in Palestine?’ 
she interposed impatiently. ‘Think of the talk it 
would make in Jerusalem! And should I even be 
permitted to land? They say the Sultan’s soldiers 
stand at the landing-place like the angels at the gates 
of Paradise with swords that turn every way. But 
Yossel is cunning in the customs of the heathen; he 
will explain to the soldiers that he is an Austrian 
subject, and that I am his Frau.’ 

‘What! Pass you off as his Frau!’ 

“Who speaks of passing off? He could say I was 
his sister, as Abraham our Father said of Sarah. But 


that was a sin in the sight of Heaven, and therefore as 
) 





our sages explain 

‘It is simple to be married,’ Yossel interrupted. 

‘Married !’ echoed the artist angrily. 

“The witnesses are coming to my lodging this after- 
noon,’ Yossel continued calmly. ‘Dovidel and Yitz- 
koly from the Beth Hamedrash.’ 

‘They think they are only coming to a farewell 
glass of brandy,’ chuckled the grandmother. ‘But 
they will find themselves at a secret wedding.’ 

‘And to-morrow we shall depart publicly for Trieste,’ 
Yossel wound up calmly. 

‘But this is too absurd!’ the artist broke in. ‘I 
forbid this marriage !’ 


376 HOLY WEDLOCK 


A violent expression of amazement overspread the 
ancient dame’s face, and the tone of the far-away years 
came into her voice. ‘Silence, Vroomkely, or I'll 
smack your face. Do you forget you are talking to 
your grandmother ?’ 

‘I think Mr. Mandelstein forgets it,’ the artist 
retorted, turning upon the heroic hunchback. ‘Do 
you mean to say you are going to marry my grand- 
mother ?’ 

‘And why not?’ asked Yossel. ‘Is there a greater 
lover of God in all Galicia?’ 

‘Hush, Yossel, I am a great sinner.’ But her old 
face was radiant. She turned to her grandson. ‘Don’t 
be angry with Yossel — all the fault is mine. He did 
not ask me to go with him to Palestine; it was I that 
asked him.’ 

‘Do you mean that you asked him to marry 
you?’ 

‘It is the same thing. There is no other way. 
How different would it have been had there been any 
other woman here who wanted to die in Palestine! 
But the women nowadays have no fear of Heaven; 
they wear their hair unshorn — they ; 

‘Yes, yes. So you asked Yossel to marry you.’ 

‘Asked? Prayed, as one prays upon Atonement 
Day. For two years I prayed to him, but he always. 
refused.’ f 

‘Then why ——?’ began the artist. 





HIOLY WEDLOCK 877 


‘Yossel is so proud. It is his only sin.’ 

‘Oh, Yenta!’ protested Yossel flushing, ‘I am a 
very sinful man.’ 

‘Yes, but your sin is all in a lump,’ the Bube replied. 
“Your iniquity is like your ugliness — some people have 
it scattered all over, but you have it all heaped up. 
And the heap is called pride.’ 

‘Never mind his pride,’ put in the artist impatiently. 
‘Why did he not go on refusing you?’ 

‘I am coming to that. Only you were always so 
impatient, Vroomkely. When I was cutting you a 
piece of Kuchen, you would snatch greedily at the 
crumbs as they fell. You see Yossel is not made of 
the same clay as you and I. By an oversight the 
Almighty sent an angel into the world instead of a man, 
but seeing His mistake at the last moment, the All- 
High broke his wings short and left him a hunchback. 
But when Yossel’s father made a match for him with 
Leah, the rich corn-factor’s daughter, the silly girl, 
when she was introduced to the bridegroom, could see 
only the hump, and scandalously refused to carry out 
the contract. And Yossel is so proud that ever since 
that day he curled himself up into his hump, and 
nursed a hatred for all women.’ 

‘How can you say that, Yenta?’ Yossel broke in 
again. 

‘Why else did you refuse my money?’ the Bube 
retorted. ‘Twice, ten, twenty times I asked him to 


378 HOLY WEDLOCK 


go to Palestine with me. But obstinate as a pig he 
keeps grunting “I can’t — I’ve got no money.” Sooner 
than I should pay his fare he’d have seen us both die 
Heres: 

The artist collapsed upon the bundle; astonishment, 
anger, and self-ridicule made an emotion too strong to 
stand under. So this was all his Machiavellian schem- 
ing had achieved — to bring about the very marriage 
it was meant to avert! He had dug a pit and fallen 
into it himself. All this would indeed amuse Rozen- 
offski and Leopold Barstein. He laughed bitterly. 

‘Nay, it was no laughing matter,’ said the Bube 
indignantly. ‘For I know well how Yossel longed to 
go with me to die in Jerusalem. And at last the 
All-High sent him the fare, and he was able to come 
to me and invite me to go with him.’ 

Here the artist became aware that Yossel’s eyes 
and lips were signalling silence to him. As if, forsooth, 
one published one’s good deeds! He had yet to learn 
on whose behalf the hunchback was signalling. 

‘So! You came into a fortune?’ he asked Yossel 
gravely. 

Yossel looked the picture of misery. The Bube 
unconsciously cut through the situation. ‘A wicked 
man gave it to him,’ she explained, ‘to pray away his 
sins in Jerusalem.’ 

‘Indeed!’ murmured the artist. ‘Anyone you 
know?’ 


HOLY WEDLOCK 379 


‘Heaven has spared her the pain of knowing him,’ 
ambiguously interpolated her anxious protector. 

‘I don’t even know his name,’ added the Bube. 
‘Yossel keeps it hidden.’ 

‘One must not shame a fellow-man,’ Yossel urged. 
‘The sin of that is equal to the sin of shedding blood.’ 

The grandmother nodded her head approvingly. 
‘It is enough that the All-High knows his name. But 
for such an Epicurean much praying will be necessary. 
It will be a long work. And your first prayer, Yossel, 
must be that you shall not die very soon, else the 
labourer will not be worthy of his hire.’ 

Yossel took her yellow withered hand as in a lover’s 
clasp. ‘Be at peace, Yenta! He will be redeemed 
if only by your merits. Are we not one?’ 





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Be A'S: (GOBLET 


I 


AARON BEN AMRAM removed from the great ritual 
dish the roasted shankbone of lamb (symbolic residuum 
of the Paschal Sacrifice) and the roasted egg (representa- 
tive of the ancient festival-offering in the Temple), and 
while his wife and children held up the dish, which 
now contained only the bitter herbs and unleavened 
cakes, he recited the Chaldaic prelude to the Seder — 
the long domestic ceremonial of the Passover Evening. 

‘This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate 
in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come 
in and eat; let all who require come in and celebrate 
the Passover. ‘This year here, next year in the land of 
Israel! ‘This year slaves, next year sons of freedom!’ 

But the Polish physician showed nothing of the slave. 
White-bearded, clad in a long white robe and a white 
skullcap, and throned on white pillows, he made rather 
a royal figure, — indeed for this night of nights con- 
ceived of himself as ‘King’ and his wife as ‘Queen.’ 

But ‘Queen’ Golda, despite her silk gown and 
flowery cap, did not share her consort’s majestic mood, 
still less the rosy happiness of the children who sat 

383 


384 ELIJAH’S GOBLET 


round this fascinating board. Her heart was full of a 
whispering fear that not all the brave melodies of the 
father nor all the quaint family choruses could drown. 
All very well for the little ones to be unconscious of the 
hovering shadow, but how could her husband have 
forgotten the horrors of the Blood Accusation in the 
very year he had led her under the Canopy? 

And surely he knew as well as she that the dreadful 
legend was gathering again, that the slowly-growing 
Jew-hatred had reached a point at which it must find 
expression, that the Pritzim (nobles) in their great 
houses, and the peasants behind their high palings, 
alike sulked under the burden of debts. Indeed, had 
not the Passover Market hummed with the old, old 
story of a lost Christian child? Not murdered yet, 
thank God, nor even a corpse. But still, if a boy should 
be found with signs of violence upon him at this season 
of the Paschal Sacrifice, when the Greek Church brooded 
on the Crucifixion! O God of Abraham, guard us from 
these fiends unchained! 

But the first part of the elaborate ritual, pleasantly 
punctuated with cups of raisin wine, passed peacefully 
by, and the evening meal, mercifully set in the middle, 
was reached, to the children’s vast content. ‘They 
made wry, humorous mouths, each jest endeared by 
annual repetition, over the horseradish that typified 
the bitterness of the Egyptian bondage, and ecstatic 
grimaces over the soft, sweet mixture of almonds, 


ELIJAH’S GOBLET 385 


raisins, apples, and cinnamon, vaguely suggestive of 
the bondsmen’s mortar; they relished the eggs sliced 
into salt water, and then—the symbols all duly 
swallowed — settled down with more prosaic satisfac- 
tion to the merely edible meats and fishes, though 
even to these the special Passover plates and dishes 
and the purified knives and forks lent a new relish. 

By this time Golda was sufficiently cheered up to 
meditate her annual theft of the Ajfkuman, that seg- 
ment of Passover cake under Aaron’s pillow, morsels of 
which, distributed to each as the final food to be tasted 
that night, replaced the final mouthful of the Paschal 
Lamb in the ancient Palestinian meal. 


II 


But Elijah’s goblet stood in the centre of the table 
untasted. Every time the ritual cup-drinking came 
round, the children had glanced at the great silver 
goblet placed for the Prophet of Redemption. Alas! the 
brimming raisin wine remained ever at the same level. 

They found consolation in the thought that the great 
moment was still to come — the moment of the third 
cup, when, mother throwing open the door, father 
would rise, holding the goblet on high, and sonorously 
salute an unseen visitor. 

True, in other years, though they had almost heard 
the rush of wings, the great shining cup had remained 
full, and when it was replaced on the white cloth, a 

2C 


386 ELIJAH’S GOBLET 


vague resentment as at a spurned hospitality had 
stirred in each youthful breast. But many reasons 
could be found to exculpate Elijah — not omitting their 
own sins — and now, when Ben Amram nodded to his 
wife to open the door, expectation stood on tip-toe, 
credulous as ever, and the young hearts beat tattoo. 

But the mother’s heart was palpitating with another 
emotion. A faint clamour in the Polish quarter at the 
back, as she replaced the samovar in the kitchen, had 
recalled all her alarms, and she merely threw open the 
door of the room. But Ben Amram was not absent- 
minded enough to be beguiled by her air of obedient 
alacrity. Besides, he could see the shut street-door 
through the strip of passage. He gestured towards it. 

Now she feigned laziness. ‘Oh, never mind.’ 

‘David, open the street-door.’ 

The eldest boy sprang up joyously. It would have 
been too bad of mother to keep Elijah on the doorstep. 

‘No, no, David!’ Golda stopped him. ‘It is too 
heavy; he could not undo the bolts and bars.’ 

‘You have barred it?’ Ben Amram asked. 

‘And why not? In this season you know how the 
heathen go mad like street-dogs.’ 

‘Pooh! They will not bite us.’ 

‘But, Aaron! You heard about the lost Christian 
child !’ 

‘I have saved many a Christian child, Golda.’ 

‘They will not remember that.’ 


ELIJAH’S GOBLET 387 


‘But I must remember the ritual.’ And he made a 
movement. 

‘No, no, Aaron! Listen!’ 

The shrill noises seemed to have veered round towards 
the front of the house. He shrugged his shoulders. 
‘I hear only the goats bleating.’ 

She clung to him as he made for the door. ‘For the 
sake of our children !’ 

‘Do not be so childish yourself, my crown !’ 

‘But I am not childish. Hark!’ 

He smiled calmly. ‘The door must be opened.’ 

Her fears lent her scepticism. ‘It is you that are 
childish. You know no Prophet of Redemption will 
come through the door.’ 

He caressed his venerable beard. ‘Who knows?’ 

‘I know. It is a Destroyer, not a Redeemer of 
Israel, who will come. Listen! Ah, God of Abraham! 
Do you not hear ?’ 

Unmistakably the how] of a riotous mob was approach- 
ing, mingled with the reedy strains of an accordion. 

‘Down with the Zhits! Death to the dirty Jews!’ 

‘God in heaven!’ She released her husband, and 
ran towards the children with a gesture as of seeking 
to gather them all in her arms. Then, hearing the 
bolts shot back, she turned with a scream. ‘Are you 
mad, Aaron?’ 

But he, holding her back with his gaze, threw wide 
the door with his left hand, while his right upheld 


388 ELIJAH’S GOBLET 


Elijah’s goblet, and over the ululation of the unseen 
mob and the shrill spasms of music rose his Hebrew 
welcome to the visitor: ‘Baruch habaa!’ 

Hardly had the greeting left his lips when a wild 
flying figure in a rich furred coat dashed round the cor- 
ner and almost into his arms, half-spilling the wine. 

‘In God’s name, Reb Aaron!’ panted the refugee, 
and fell half-dead across the threshold. 

The physician dragged him hastily within, and 
slammed the door, just as two moujiks — drunken 
leaders of the chase — lurched past. ‘The mother, who 
had sprung forward at the sound of the fall, frenziedly 
shot the bolts, and in another instant the hue and cry 
tore past the house and dwindled in the distance. 

Ben Amram raised the white bloody face, and put 
Elijah’s goblet to the lips. The strange visitor drained 
it to the dregs, the clustered children looking on 
dazedly. As the head fell back, it caught the light 
from the festive candles of the Passover board. The 
face was bare of hair; even the side curls were gone. 

‘Maimon the Meshummad!’ cried the mother, 
shuddering back. ‘You have saved the Apostate.’ 

‘Did I not say the door must be opened?’ replied 
Ben Amram gently. Then a smile of humour twitched 
his lips, and he smoothed his white beard. ‘Maimon 
is the only Jew abroad to-night, and how were the poor 
drunken peasants to know he was baptized ?’ 

Despite their thrill of horror at the traitor, David and 


ELIJAH’S GOBLET 389 


his brothers and sisters were secretly pleased to see 
Elijah’s goblet empty at last. 


III 


Next morning the Passover liturgy rang jubilantly 
through the vast, crowded synagogue. No violence 
had been reported, despite the passage of a noisy mob. 
The Ghetto, then, was not to be laid waste with fire 
and sword, and the worshippers within the moss-grown, 
turreted quadrangle drew free breath, and sent it out 
in great shouts of rhythmic prayer, as they swayed in 
their fringed shawls, with quivering hands of supplica- 
tion. The Ark of the Law at one end of the great build- 
ing, overbrooded by the Ten Commandments and the 
perpetual light, stood open to mark a supreme moment 
of devotion. Ben Amram had been given the honour 
of uncurtaining the shrine, and its richly clad scrolls of 
all sizes, with their silver bells and pointers, stood 
revealed in solemn splendour. 

Through the ornate grating of their gallery the gaily- 
clad women looked down on the rocking figures, while 
the grace-notes of the cantor on his central dais, and 
the harmoniously interjected ‘poms’ of his male 
ministrants flew up to their ears, as though they were 
indeed angels on high. Suddenly, over the blended 
passion of cantor and congregation, an ominous sound 
broke from without — the complex clatter of cavalry, 
the curt ring of military orders. The swaying figures 


390 ELITAH’S GOBLET 


turned suddenly as under another wind, the women’s 
eyes grew astare and ablaze with terror. The great 
doors flew open, and — oh, awful, incredible sight — a 
squadron of Cossacks rode slowly in, two abreast, 
with a heavy thud of hoofs on the sacred floor, and a 
rattle of ponderous sabres. Their black conical caps 
and long beards, their great side-buttoned coats, and 
pockets stuffed with protrusive cartridges, their pranc- 
ing horses, their leaded knouts, struck a blood-curdling 
discord amid the prayerful, white-wrapped figures. 
The rumble of worship ceased, the cantor, suddenly 
isolated, was heard soaring ecstatically; then he, too, 
turned his head uneasily and his roulade died in his 
throat. 

‘Halt!’ the officer cried. ‘The moving column froze. 
Its bristling length stretched from the central platform, 
blocking the aisle, and the courtyard echoed with the 
clanging hoofs of its rear, which backed into the school 
and the poor-house. The Shamash (beadle) was seen 
to front the flamboyant invaders. 

‘Why does your Excellency intrude upon our prayers 
to God?’ 

The congregation felt its dignity return. Who 
would have suspected Red Judah of such courage — 
such apt speech? Why, the very Rabbi was petrified ; 
the elders of the Kahal stood dumb. Ben Amram him- 
self, their spokesman to the Government, whose pray- 
ing-shawl was embroidered with a silver band, and 


ELIJAH’S GOBLET 391 


whose coat was satin, remained immovable between 
the pillars of the Ark, staring stonily at the brave 
beadle. | 

‘First of all, for the boy’s blood!’ 

The words rang out with military precision, and the 
speaker’s horse pawed clangorously, as if impatient 
for the charge. The men grew death-pale, the women 
wrung their hands. 

‘Ai, vat!’ they moaned. ‘Woe! woe!’ 

‘What boy? What blood?’ said the Shamash, 
undaunted. 

‘Don’t palter, you rascal! You know well that a 
Christian child has disappeared.’ 

The aged Rabbi, stimulated by the Shamash, up- 
lifted a quavering voice. 

‘The child will be found of a surety — if, indeed, it 
is lost,’ he added with bitter sarcasm. ‘And surely 
your Excellency cannot require the boy’s blood at our 
hands ere your Excellency knows it is indeed spilt.’ 

‘You misunderstand me, old dog—or rather you 
pretend to, old fox. The boy’s blood is here — it is 
kept in this very synagogue —and I have come for 
it.’ 

The Shamash laughed explosively. ‘Oh, Excel- 
lency !’ 

The synagogue, hysterically tense, caught the con- 
tagion of glad relief. It rang with strange laughter. 

‘There is no blood in this synagogue, Excellency,’ 


392 . ELIJAH’S GOBLET 


said the Rabbi, his eyes a-twinkle, ‘save what runs in 
living veins.’ 

‘We shall see. Produce that bottle beneath the Ark.’ 

‘That!’ The Shamash grinned — almost indeco- 
rously. ‘That is the Consecration wine —red as my 
beard,’ quoth he. 

‘Ha! ha! the red Consecration wine!’ repeated the 
synagogue in a happy buzz, and from the women’s 
gallery came the same glad murmur of mutual ex- 
planation. 

‘We shall see,’ repeated the officer, with iron im- 
perturbability, and the happy hum died into a cold 
heart-faintness, fraught with an almost incredulous ap- 
prehension of some devilish treachery, some mock dis- 
covery that would give the Ghetto over to the frenzies 
of fanatical creditors, nay, to the vengeance of the law. 

The officer’s voice rose again. ‘Let no one leave 
the synagogue — man, woman, or child. Kill anyone 
who attempts to escape.’ 

The screams of fainting women answered him from 
above, but impassively he urged his horse along the 
aisle that led to the Ark; its noisy hoofs trampled 
over every heart. Springing from his saddle he opened 
the little cupboard beneath the scrolls, and drew out a 
bottle, hideously red. 

‘Consecration wine, eh?’ he said grimly. 

‘What else, Excellency?’ stoutly replied the Shamash, 
who had followed him. 


ELIJAH’S GOBLET 393 


A savage laugh broke from the officer’s lips.‘ Drink 
me a mouthful !’ 

As the Shamash took the bottle, with a fearless shrug 
of the shoulders, every eye strained painfully towards 
him, save in the women’s gallery, where many covered 
their faces with their hands. Every breath was held. 

Keeping the same amused incredulous face, Red 
Judah gulped down a draught. But as the liquid met 
his palate a horrible distortion overcame his smile, his 
hands flew heavenwards. Dropping the bottle, and 
with a hoarse cry, ‘Mercy, O God!’ he fell before the 
Ark, foaming at the mouth. The red fluid spread in a 
vivid pool. 

‘Hear, O Israel!’ A raucous cry of horror rose from 
all around, and was echoed more shrilly from above. 
Almighty Father! The Jew-haters had worked their 
fiendish trick. Now the men were become as the 
women, shrieking, wringing their hands, crying, ‘Az, 
vai!’ ‘Gewalt!’ The Rabbi shook as with palsy. 
‘Satan! Satan!’ chattered through his teeth. 

But Ben Amram had moved at last, and was stooping 
over the scarlet stain. 

‘A soldier should know blood, Excellency!’ the 
physician said quietly. 

The officer’s face relaxed into a faint smile. 

‘A soldier knows wine, too,’ he said, sniffing. And, 
indeed, the spicy reek of the Consecration wine was 
bewildering the nearer bystanders. 


394 ELIJAAM’S GOBLET 


‘Your Excellency frightened poor Judah into a 
fit,’ said the physician, raising the beadle’s head by 
its long red beard. 

His Excellency shrugged his Ronde sprang to his 
saddle, and cried a retreat. The Cossacks, unable to 
turn in the aisle, backed cumbrously with a manifold 
thudding and rearing and clanking, but ere the con- 
gregation had finished rubbing their eyes, the last 
conical hat and leaded knout had vanished, and only 
the tarry reek of their boots was left in proof of their 
actual passage. A deep silence hung for a moment 
like a heavy cloud, then it broke in a torrent of ejacu- 
lations. 

But Ben Amram’s voice rang through the din. 
‘Brethren!’ He rose from wiping the frothing lips 
of the stricken creature, and his face had the fiery 
gloom of a seer’s, and the din died under his uplifted 
palm. ‘Brethren, the Lord hath saved us!’ 

‘Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever !’ 
The Rabbi began the phrase, and the congregation 
caught it up in thunder. 

‘But hearken how. Last night at the Seder, as: I 
opened the door for Elijah, there entered Maimon the 
Meshummad! Twas he quaffed Elijah’s cup!’ 

There was a rumble of imprecations. 

‘A pretty Elijah!’ cried the Rabbi. 

‘Nay, but God sends the Prophet of Redemption 
in strange guise,’ the physician said. ‘Listen! Mai- 


ELIJTAH’S GOBLET 395 


mon was pursued by a drunken mob, ignorant he was 
a deserter from our camp. When he found how I 
had saved him and dressed his bleeding face, when 
he saw the spread Passover table, his child-soul came 
back to him, and in a burst of tears he confessed the 
diabolical plot against our community, hatched through 
his instrumentality by some desperate debtors; how, 
having raised the cry of a lost child, they were to have 
its blood found beneath our Holy Ark as in some mystic 
atonement. And while you all lolled joyously at the 
Seder table, a bottle of blood lay here instead of the 
Consecration wine, like a bomb waiting to burst and 
destroy us all.’ 

A shudder of awe traversed the synagogue. 

‘But the Guardian of Israel, who permits us to 
sleep on Passover night without night-prayer, neither 
slumbers nor sleeps. Maimon had bribed the Shamash 
to let him enter the synagogue and replace the Con- 
secration wine.’ 

“Red Judah!’ It was like the growl of ten thousand 
tigers. Some even precipitated themselves upon the 
writhing wretch. 

‘Back! back!’ cried Ben Amram. ‘The Almighty 
has smitten him.’ 

‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,”’ quoted the 
Rabbi solemnly. 

‘Hallelujah !’ shouted a frenzied female voice, and 
‘Hallelujah !’ the men responded in thunder. 


396 ELIJAH’S GOBLET 


‘Red Judah had no true belief in the God of Israel,’ 
the physician. went on. 

‘May he be an atonement for us all!’ interrupted 
the Cantor. 

‘Amen!’ growled the congregation. 

‘For a hundred roubles and the promise of personal 
immunity Red Judah allowed Maimon the Meshummad 
to change the bottles while all Israel sat at the Seder. 
It was because the mob saw the Meshummad stealing 
out of the synagogue that they fell upon him for 
a pious Jew. Behold, brethren, how the Almighty 
weaves his threads together. After the repentant 
sinner had confessed all to me, and explained how the 
Cossacks were to be sent to catch all the community 
assembled helpless in synagogue, I deemed it best 
merely to get the bottles changed back again. The 
false bottle contained only bullock’s blood, but it 
would have sufficed to madden the multitude. Since 
it is I who have the blessed privilege of supplying the 
Consecration wine it was easy enough to give Maimon 
another bottle, and armed with this he roused the 
Shamash in the dawn, pretending he had now 
obtained true human blood. A rouble easily pro- 
cured him the keys again, and when he brought me 
back the bullock’s blood, I awaited the sequel in 
peace.’ | 

‘Praise ye the Lord, for He is good,’ sang the cantor, 
carried away. 


ELIJAH’S GOBLET 397 


‘For His mercy endureth for ever,’ replied the con- 
gregation instinctively. 

‘I did not foresee the Shamash would put himself 
so brazenly forward to hide his guilt, or that he would 
be asked to drink. But when the Epikouros (atheist) 
put the bottle to his lips, expecting to taste blood, and 
found instead good red wine, doubtless he felt at once 
that the God of Israel was truly in heaven, that He had 
wrought a miracle and changed the blood back to wine.’ 

‘And such a miracle God wrought verily,’ cried the 
Rabbi, grasping the physician’s hand, while the syna- 
gogue resounded with cries of ‘May thy strength 
increase,’ and the gallery heaved frantically with bless- 
ings and congratulations. 

“What wonder,’ the physician wound up, as he bent 
again over the ghastly head, with its pious ringlets 
writhing like red snakes, ‘that he fell stricken by dread 
of the Almighty’s wrath !’ 

And while men were bearing the convulsive form 
without, the cantor began to recite the Grace after 
Redemption. And then the happy hymns rolled out, 
and the choristers cried ‘Pom!’ and a breath of 
jubilant hope passed through the synagogue. The 
mighty hand and the outstretched arm which had 
redeemed Israel from the Egyptian bondage were still 
hovering over them, nor would the Prophet Elijah for 
ever delay to announce the ultimate Messiah. . 





4 


‘ ; 
yah 
i i 
ae 
fy ae 
“a 
Ps 
Me 


HIRELINGS 


\ 











Fesudll 








THE HIRELINGS 


I 


CROWDED as was the steamer with cultured Americans 
invading Europe, few knew that Rozenoffski was on 
board, or even that Rozenoffski was a pianist. The 
name, casually seen on the passengers’ list, conveyed 
nothing but a strong Russian and a vaguer Semitic 
flavour, and the mere outward man, despite a leonine 
head, was of insignificant port and somewhat shuffling 
gait, and drew scarcely a second glance. 

He would not have had it otherwise, he told himself 
as he paced the almost deserted deck after dinner — 
it was a blessing to escape from the perpetual adulation 
of music-sick matrons and schoolgirls — but every 
wounded fibre in him was yearning for consolation after 
his American failure. 

Not that his fellow-passengers were aware of his 
failure; he had not put himself to the vulgar tests. 
His American expedition had followed the lines recom- 
mended to him by friendly connoisseurs — to come 
before the great public, if at all, only after being 
launched by great hostesses at small parties; to which 


end he had provided himself with unimpeachable in- 
2D 401 


402 THE HIRELINGS 


ductions to unexceptionable ladies from irresistible 
personalities —a German Grand Duke, a Bulgarian 
Ambassador, Countesses, both French and Italian, and 
even a Belgian princess. But to his boundless amaze- 
ment — for he had always heard that Americans were 
wax before titles — not one of the social leaders had been 
of the faintest assistance to him, not even the owner of 
the Chicago Palace, to whom he had been recommended 
by the Belgian princess. He had penetrated through 
one or two esoteric doors, only to find himself outside 
them again. Not once had he been asked to play. It 
was some weeks before it even dawned upon the minor 
prophet of European music-rooms that he was being 
shut out, still longer before it permeated to his brain 
that he had been shut out as a Jew! 

Those barbarous Americans, so far behind Europe 
after all! Had they not even discovered that art levels 
all ranks and races? Poor bourgeois money-mongers 
with their mushroom civilization. It was not even as if 
he were really a Jew. Did they imagine he wore phy- 
lacteries or earlocks, or what? His few childish years 
in the Russian Pale — what were they to the long 
years of European art and European culture? And 
even if in Rome or Paris he had} foregathered 
with Jews like Schneemann or Leopold Barstein, it 
was to the artist in them he had gravitated, not 
the Jew. Did these Yankee ignoramuses suppose 
he did not share their aversion from the gaberdine 


THE HIRELINGS 403 


or the three brass balls? Oh the narrow-souled anti- 
Semites ! 

The deck-steward stacked the chairs, piled up the 
forgotten rugs and novels, tidying the deck for the 
night, but still the embittered musician tramped to 
and fro under the silent stars. Only from the smoking- 
room where the amateur auctioneer was still hilariously 
selling the numbers for a sweepstake, came sounds in 
discord with the solemnity of sky and sea, and the 
artist was newly jarred at this vulgar gaiety flung in 
the face of the spacious and starry mystery of the night. 
And these jocose, heavy-jowled, smoke-soused gamblers 
were the Americans whose drawing-rooms he would 
contaminate! He recalled the only party to which he 
had been asked — ‘To meet the Bright Lights’ — and 
which to his amazement turned out to be a quasi-public 
entertainment with the guests seated in rows in a hall, 
and himself — with the other Bright Lights — planted 
on a platform and made to perform without a fee. The 
mean vulgarians! But perhaps it was better they 
had left him untainted with their dollars — better, com- 
paratively poor though he was, that America should 
have meant pure loss to him. He had at least kept the 
spiritual satisfaction of despising the despiser, the dig- 
nity of righteous resentment, the artist’s pride in the 
profitless. And this riot of ugliness and diamonds and 
third-rate celebrities was the fashionable society to 
which, forsooth, the Jew could not be permitted access ! 


404 THE HIRELINGS 


The aroma of an expensive cigar wafted towards him, 
and the face between whose prominent teeth it was 
stuck loomed vividly in the glare of an electric light. 
Rozenoffski recognised those teeth. He had seen 
countless pictures and caricatures of them, for did they 
not almost hold the globe in their grip? This, then, 
was the notorious multi-millionaire, ‘the Napoleon in 
dollars,’ as a wit had summed him up; and the first 
sight of Andrew P. Wilhammer almost consoled the 
player for his poverty. Who, even for an imperial 
income, would bear the burden of those grotesque teeth, 
protruding like a sample of wares’ in a dentist’s show- 
case? But as the teeth came nearer and the great 
rubicund face bore down upon him, the prominence of 
the notorious incisors affected him less than their 
carnivorous capacity — he felt himself almost swallowed 
up by this monstrous beast of prey, so admirably 
equated to our small day of large things, to that en- 
vironment in which he, poor degenerate artist, was but 
a little singing-bird. The long-forgotten word Rishus 
came suddenly into his mind — was not the man’s anti- 
Semitism as obtruded as his teeth? — Rishus, that 
wicked malice, which to a persecuted people had 
become almost a synonym for Christianity. He had 
left the thought behind him, as he had left the Hebrew 
word, while he went sailing up into the rosy ether of 
success, and Rzshus had sunk into the mere panic-word 
of the Ghetto’s stunted brood, shrinking and quivering 


THE AIRELINGS 405 


before phantasms, sinuously gliding through a mis- 
understood world, if it was not, indeed, rather a word 
conveniently cloaking from themselves a multitude of 
their own sins. But now, as incarnated in this million- 
aire mammoth, the shadowy word took on a sudden 
solidity, to which his teeth gave the necessary tearing 
and rending significance. 

Yes, in very sooth — he remembered it suddenly — 
was it not this man’s wife on whom he had built his 
main hopes? Was she not the leader of musical 
America, to whom the Belgian princess had given him 
the scented and crested note of introduction which was 
to open to him all doors and all ears? Was it not in her 
marvellous marble music-room — one of the boasts of 
Chicago — that he had mentally seen himself enthroned 
as the lord of the feast? And instead of these Olym- 
pian visions, lo! a typewritten note to clench his fist 
over — a note from a secretary regretting that the state 
of Mrs. Wilhammer’s health forbade the pleasure of 
receiving a maestro with such credentials. Rishus — 
Rishus indubitable ! 


II 


Turning with morbid interest to look after the re- 
treating millionaire, he found him in converse witha 
feminine figure at the open door of a deck-cabin. Could 
this be the great She, the arbitress of art? He moved 
nearer. Why, this was but a girl—nay, unless his 


406 THE HIRELINGS 


instinct was at fault, a Jewish girl —a glorious young 
Jewess, of that radiant red-haired type which the 
Russian Pale occasionally flowered with. What was 
she doing with this Christian Colossus? He tried vainly 
to see her left hand; the mere possibility that she might 
be Mrs. Wilhammer shocked his Semitic instinct. 
Wilhammer disappeared within — the relation was ob- 
viously intimate — but the girl still stood at the door, 
a brooding magical figure. 

Almost a sense of brotherhood moved him to speak 
to her, but he conquered the abnormal and incorrect 
impulse, contenting himself with walking past her and 
a side-glance, while at the end of the deck-promenade, 
instead of returning on his footsteps, he even arched 
his path round to the windy side. After some minutes 
of buffeting he returned chilled to his prior pacing 
ground. She was still there, but had moved under the 
same electric light which had illuminated Wilhammer’s 
face, and she was reading a letter. As his walk carried 
him past her, he was startled to see tears rolling down 
those radiant cheeks. A slight exclamation came in- 
voluntarily from him; the girl, even more startled to 
be caught thus, relaxed her grip of the letter —a puff 
of wind hastened to whirl it aloft. Rozenoffski grasped 
at it desperately, but it eluded him, and then descend- 
ing sailed sternwards. He gave chase, stumbling over 
belated chairs and deck-quoits, but at last it was safe in 
his clutch, and as he handed it to the agitated owner 


THE HIRELINGS 407 


whom he found at his elbow, he noted with a thrill that 
the characters were cursive Hebrew. 

‘How can I zank you, sir!’ Her Teutonic-touched 
American gave him the courage to reply gallantly in 
German : 

‘By letting me help you more seriously.’ 

‘Ach, mein Herr’ —she jumped responsively into 
German — ‘it was for joy I was crying, not sorrow.’ 
As her American was Germanic, so was her German 
like the Yiddish of his remote youth, and this, adding 
to the sweetness of her voice, dissolved the musician’s 
heart within his breast. He noted now with satisfac- 
tion that her fingers were bare of rings. 

‘Then I am rejoiced too,’ he ventured to reply. 

She smiled pathetically, and began to walk back tow- 
ards her cabin. ‘With us Jews,’ she said, ‘tears and 
laughter are very close.’ 

‘Us Jews!’ He winced a little. It was so long since 
he had been thus classed to his face by a stranger. 
But perhaps he had misinterpreted her phrase; it was 
her way of referring to her race, not necessarily to His. 
‘It is a beautiful night,’ he murmured uneasily. But 
he only opened wider the flood-gates of race-feeling. 

‘Yes,’ she replied simply, ‘and such a heaven of 
stars is beginning to arise over the night of Israel. Is 
it not wonderful — the transformation of our people? 
When I left Russia as a girl —so young,’ she interpo- 
lated with a sad smile, ‘that I had not even been 


408 THE HIRELINGS 


married — ‘I left a priest-ridden, paralysed people, a 
cringing, cowering, contorted people —I shall never 
forget the panic in our synagogue when a troop of 
Cossacks rode in with a bogus blood-accusation. Now 
it is a people alive with ideas and volitions; the young 
generation dreams noble dreams, and, what is stranger, 
dies to execute them. Our Bund is the soul of the 
Russian revolution; our self-defence bands are bringing 
back the days of Judas Maccabzeus. In the olden times 
of massacre our people fled to the synagogues to pray; 
now they march to the fight like men.’ 

They had arrived at her door, and she ended sud- 
denly. The musician, fascinated, feared she was about 
to fade away within. 

‘But Jews can’t fight!’ he cried, half-incredulous, 
half to arrest her. 

‘Not fight!’ She held up the Hebrew letter. ‘They 
have scouts, ambulance corps, orderlies, surgeons, 
everything — my cousin David Ben Amram, who is 
little more than a boy, was told off to defend a large 
three-story house inhabited by the families of factory- 
labourers who were at work when the pogrom broke 
out. The poor frenzied women and children had 
barricaded themselves within at the first rumour, 
and hidden themselves in cellars and attics. My 
cousin had to climb to their defence over the neigh- 
bouring tiles and through a window in the roof. Soon 
the house was besieged by police, troops, and hooligans 


THE HIRELINGS 409 


in devilish league. With his one Browning revolver 
David held them all at bay, firing from every window 
of the house in turn, so as to give the besiegers an 
impression of a large defensive force. At last his 
cartridges were exhausted —to procure cartridges is 
the greatest difficulty of our self-defence corps — they 
began battering in the big front-door. David, seeing 
further resistance was useless, calmly drew back the 
bolts, to the mob’s amaze, and, as it poured in, he cried: 
‘Back! back! They have bombs!’ and rushed into 
the street, as if to escape the explosion. The others 
followed wildly, and in the panic David ran down a 
dark alley, and disappeared in search of a new post of 
defence. ‘Though the door stood open, and the cower- 
ing inhabitants were at their mercy, the assailants, 
afraid to enter, remained for over an hour at a safe 
distance firing at the house, till it was riddled with 
bullets. ‘They counted nearly two hundred the next 
day, embedded in the walls or strewn about the rooms. 
And not a thing had been stolen — not a hooligan had 
dared enter. But David is only a type of the young 
generation — there are hundreds of Davids equally 
ready to take the field against Goliath. And shall I not 
rejoice, shall I not exult even unto tears?’ Her eyes 
glowed, and the musician was kindled to equal fire. 
It seemed to him less a girl who was speaking than 
Truth and Purity and some dead muse of his own. 
‘The Pale that I left,’ she went on, ‘was truly a prison. 


410 THE HIRELINGS 


But now — now it will be the forging-place of a regener- 
ated people! Oh, I am counting the days till I can 
be back!’ 

‘You are going back to Russia!’ he gasped. 

He had the sensation of cold steel passing through 
his heart. ‘The pogroms, which had been as remote to 
him as the squabbles of savages in Central Africa, 
became suddenly vivid and near. And even vivider 
and nearer that greater danger —the heroic Cousin 
David! 

‘How can I live away from Russia at such a mo- 
ment?’ she answered quietly. ‘Who or what needs 
me in America?’ 

‘But to be massacred!’ he cried, incoherently. 

She smiled radiantly. ‘To live and die with my own 
people.’ 

The fire in his veins seemed upleaping in a sublime 
jet; he was like to crying, ‘Thy people shall be my 
people,’ but all he found himself saying was, ‘You 
must not, you must not; what can a girl like you do?’ 

A bell rang sharply from the cabin. 

‘I must go tomy mistress. Gute Nacht, mein Herr!’ 

His flame sank to sudden ashes. Only Mrs. Wil- 
hammer’s hireling ! 


III 


The wind freshened towards the middle of the night, 
and Rozenoffski, rocking in his berth, cursed his en- 


THE HIRELINGS 411 


~ counter with the red-haired romanticist who had stirred 
up such a pother in his brain that he had not been able 
to fall asleep while the water was still calm. Not that 
he suffered physically from the sea; he was merely 
afraid of it. The shuddering and groaning of the ship 
found an echo in his soul. He could not shake off the 
conviction that he was doomed to drown. At intervals, 
during the tedious night, he found forgetfulness in 
translating into sound his sense of the mystic, master- 
less waste in which the continents swim like islands, 
but music was soon swallowed up in terror. : 

‘No,’ he sighed, with a touch of self-mockery. 
“When I am safe on shore again, I shall weave my 
symphony of the sea.’ 

Sleep came at last, but only to perturb him with a 
Jewish Joan of Arc who—turned Admiral—recaptured 
Zion from her battleship, to the sound of Psalms droned. 
by his dead grandfather. And, though he did not see 
her the next day, and was, indeed, rather glad not to 
meet a lady’s maid in the unromantic daylight, the 
restlessness she had engendered remained, replacing 
the settled bitterness which was all he had brought 
back from America. In the afternoon this restlessness 
drove him to the piano in the deserted dining-hall, and 
his fever sought to work itself off in a fury of practice. 
But the inner turbulence persisted, and the new thoughts 
clung round the old music. He was playing Schu- 
mann’s Fantasiesiticke, but through the stormy pas- 


412 THE HIRELINGS 


sion of In der Nacht he saw the red hair of the heroic 
Jewess, and into the wistful, questioning Warum in- 
sinuated itself not the world-question, but the Jewish 
question — the sad, unending Jewish question — surg- 
ing up again and again in every part of the globe, as 
Schumann’s theme in every part of the piano — the 
same haunting musical figure, never the same notes 
exactly, yet essentially always the same, the wistful, 
questioning Warum. Why all this ceaseless sorrow, 
this footsore wandering, this rootless life, this eternal 
curse? 

Suddenly he became aware that he was no longer 
alone — forms were seated at the tables on the fixed 
dining-chairs, though there was no meal but his music; 
and as he played on, with swift side-peeps, other fellow- 
passengers entered into his consciousness, some stand- 
ing about, others hovering on the stairs, and still others 
stealing in on reverent tip-toe and taking favourable 
seats. His breast filled with bitter satisfaction. 

So they had to come, the arrogant Americans; they 
had to swarm like rats to the pied piper. He could 
draw them at will, the haughty heathen — draw them 
by the magic of his finger-touch on pieces of ivory. 
Lo, they were coming, more and more of them! Through 
the corner of his eye he espied the figures drifting 
in from the corridors, peering in spellbound at the 
doors. 

With a great crash on the keys, he shook off his 


THE HIRELINGS 413 


morbid mood, and plunged into Scarlatti’s Sonata in A, 
his fingers frolicking all over the board, bent on a 
dominating exhibition of technique. As he stopped, 
there was a storm of hand-clapping. Rozenoffski gave 
a masterly start of surprise, and turned his leonine head 
in dazed bewilderment. Was he not then alone? 
‘Gott in Himmel!’ he murmured, and, furiously bang- 
ing down the piano-lid, stalked from these presump- 
tuous mortals who had jarred the artist’s soliloquy. 

But the next afternoon found him again at the public 
piano, devoting all the magic of his genius to charming 
a contemptible Christendom. He gave them Bee- 
thoven and Bach, Paradies and Tschaikowski, unrolled 
to them the vast treasures of his art and memory. 
And very soon, lo! the Christian rats were pattering 
back again, only more wisely and cautiously. They 
came crawling from every part of the ship’s compass. 
Newcomers were warned whisperingly to keep from 
applause. In vain. An enraptured greenhorn shouted 
‘Encore!’ The musician awoke from his trance,_ 
stared dreamily at the Philistines; then, as the pres- 
ence of listeners registered itself upon his expressive 
countenance, he rose again — but this time as more 
in sorrow than in anger —and stalked sublimely up 
the swarming stairs. 

It became a tradition to post guards at the doors to 
warn all comers as to the habits of the great unknown, 
who could only beat his music out if he imagined him- 


414 THE HIRELINGS 


self unheard. Scouts watched his afternoon advance 
upon the piano in an empty hall, and the word was 
passed to the little army of music-lovers. Silently the 
rats gathered, scurrying in on noiseless paws, stealing 
into the chairs, swarming about the doorways, prick- 
ing up their ears in the corridors. And through the 
awful hush rose the master’s silvery notes in rapturous 
self-oblivion till the day began to wane, and the stewards 
to appear with the tea-cups. 

And the larger his audience grew, the fiercer grew his 
resentment against this complacent Christendom which 
took so much from the Jew and gave so little. ‘Shy- 
locks!’ he would mutter between his clenched teeth 
as he played — ‘Shylocks all!’ 


IV 


With no less punctuality did Rozenoffski pace the 
silent deck each night in the hope of again meeting the 
red-haired Jewess. He had soon recovered from her 
menial office; indeed, the paradox of her position in so 
anti-Semitic a household quickened his interest in 
her. He wondered if she ever listened to his playing, 
or had realized that she had entertained an angel 
unawares. 

But three nights passed without glimpse of her. Nor 
was her mistress more visible. The Wilhammers kept 
royally to themselves in their palatial suite, though the 
husband sometimes deigned to parade his fangs in the 


THE HIRELINGS 415 


smoking-room, where with the luck of the rich he won 
heavily in the pools. It was not till the penultimate 
night of the voyage that Rozenoffski caught his second 
glimpse of his red-haired muse. He had started his 
nocturnal pacing much earlier than usual, for the 
inevitable concert on behalf of marine charities had 
sucked the loungers from their steamer-chairs. He 
had himself, of course, been approached by the pro- 
gramme-organizer, a bouncing actress from ’Frisco, 
with an irresistible air, but he had defeated her hope- 
lessly with the mysterious sarcasm: ‘To meet the 
Bright Lights?’ And his reward was to have the deck * 
and the heavens almost to himself, and presently to 
find the stars outgleamed by a girl’s hair. Yes, there 
she was, gazing pensively forth from the cabin window. 
He guessed the mistress was out for once — presumably 
at the concert. His heart beat faster as he came to a 
standstill, yet the reminder that she was a lady’s maid 
brought an involuntary note of condescension into his 
voice. 

‘I hope Mrs. Wilhammer hasn’t been keeping you 
too imprisoned?’ he said. 

She smiled faintly. ‘Not so close as Neptune has 
kept her.’ 

‘Ill?’ he said, with a shade of malicious satisfaction. 

‘It is curious and even consoling to see the limita- 
tions of Croesus,’ she replied. ‘But she is lucky —she 
just recovered in time.’ 


416 THE HIRELINGS 


‘In time for what?’ 

‘Can’t you hear?’ 

Indeed, the shrill notes of an amateur soprano had 
been rending the air throughout, but they had scarcely 
penetrated through his exaltation. He now shuddered. 

‘Do you mean it is she singing?’ 

The girl laughed outright. ‘She sing! No, no, she 
is a sensitive receiver. She receives; she gives out 
nothing. She exploits her soul as her husband ex- 
ploits the globe. ‘There isn’t a sensation or an emotion 
she denies herself — unless it is painful. It was to 
escape the concert that she has left her couch — and 
sought refuge in a friend’s cabin. You see, here sound 
travels straight from the dining-hall, and a false note, 
she says, gives her nerve-ache.’ 

‘Then she can’t return till the close of the concert,’ 
he said eagerly. ‘ Won’t you come outside and walk a 
bit under this beautiful moon ?’ 

She came out without a word, with the simplicity of 
a comrade. 

‘Yes, it is a beautiful night,’ she said, ‘and very soon 
I shall be in Russia.’ 

‘But is Mrs. Wilhammer going to Russia, then?’ 
he asked, with a sudden thought, wondering that it 
had never occurred to him before. 

‘Of course not! I only joined her for this voyage. 
I have to work my passage, you see, and Providence, on 
the eve of sailing, robbed Mrs. Wilhammer of her maid.’ 


THE HIRELINGS 417 


‘Oh!’ he murmured in relief. His red-haired muse 
was going back to her social pedestal. ‘But you must 
have found it humiliating,’ he said. 

‘Humiliating?’ She laughed cheerfully. ‘Why more 
than manicuring her?’ 

The muse shivered again on the pedestal. 

‘Manicuring?’ he echoed in dismay. 

‘Sure!’ she laughed in American. ‘When, after a 
course of starvation and medicine at Berne University, 
I found I had to get a new degree for America. . .’ 

“You are a doctor?’ he interrupted. 

‘And, therefore, peculiarly serviceable as a ship- 
maid.’ 

She smiled again, and her smile in the moonlight 
reminded him of a rippling passage of Chopin. Prosaic 
enough, however, was what she went on to tell him of 
her struggle for life by day and for learning by night. 
‘Of course, I could only attend the night medical school. 
I lived by lining cloaks with fur; my bed was the corner 
of a room inhabited by a whole family. A would-be 
graduate could not be seen with bundles; for fetching 
and carrying the work my good landlady extorted 
twenty cents to the dollar. When the fur season was 
slack I cooked in a restaurant, worked a typewriter, 
became a “hello girl’? — at a telephone, you know — 
reported murder cases — anything, everything.’ 

‘Manicuring,’ he recalled tenderly. 

‘Manicuring,’ she repeated smilingly. ‘And you ask 


2k 


418 THE HIRELINGS 


me if it is humiliating to wait upon an artistic sea-sick 
lady ! 

‘Artistic’! he sneered. His heart was full of pity 
and indignation. 

‘As surely as sea-sick!’? she rejoined laughingly. 
‘Why are you prejudiced against her ?’ 

He flushed. ‘Prej-prejudiced?’ he stammered. 
‘Why should I be prejudiced? From all I hear it’s 
she that’s prejudiced. It’s a wonder she took a Jewess 
into her service.’ 

‘Where’s the wonder? Don’t the Southerners have 
negro servants?’ she asked quietly. 

His flush deepened. ‘You compare Jews to negroes!’ 

‘I apologize to the negroes. The blacks have at 
least Liberia. There is a black President, a black Par- 
liament. We have nothing, nothing!’ 

‘We!’ Again that ambiguous plural. But he still 
instinctively evaded co-classification. 

‘Nothing?’ he retorted. ‘I should have said every- 
thing. Every gift of genius that Nature can shower 
from her cornucopia.’ 

‘Jewess geniuses!’ Her voice had a stinging inflec- 
tion. ‘ Don’t talk to me of our geniuses; it is they that 
have betrayed us. Every other people has its great 
men; but our great men — they belong to every other 
people. The world absorbs our sap, and damns us for 
our putrid remains. Our best must pipe alien tunes 
and dance to the measures of the heathen. They build 


THE HIRELINGS 419 


and paint; they write and legislate. But-never a song 
of Israel do they fashion, nor a picture of Israel, nor a 
law of Israel, nor a temple of Israel. Bah! What are 
they but hirelings ?’ 

Again the passion of her patriotism uplifted and en- 
kindled him. Yes, it was true. He, too, was but a 
hireling. But he would become a Master; he would 
go back — back to the Ghetto, and this noble Jewess 
should be his mate. Thank God he had kept himself 
free for her. But ere he could pour out his soul, the 
bouncing San Franciscan actress appeared suddenly at 
his elbow, risking a last desperate assault, discharging 
a pathetic tale of a comedian with a cold. Rozenoffski 
repelled the attack savagely, but before he could ex- 
haust the enemy’s volubility his red-haired companion 
had given him a friendly nod and smile, and retreated 
into her shrine of duty. | 


V 


He spent a sleepless but happy night, planning out 
their future together; her redemption from her hireling 
status, their joint work for their people. He was no 
longer afraid of the sea. He was afraid of nothing — 
not even of the pogroms that awaited them in Russia. 
Russia itself became dear to him again — the beautiful 
land of his boyhood, whose birds and whispering leaves 
and waters had made his earliest music. 

But dearer than all resurged his Jewish memories. 


420 THE HIRELINGS 


When he went almost mechanically to the piano on 
the last afternoon, all these slumbering forces wakened 
in him found vent in a rhapsody of synagogue melody 
to which he abandoned himself, for once forgetting his 
audience. When gradually he became aware of the 
incongruity, it did but intensify his inspiration. Let 
the heathen rats wallow in Hebrew music! But soon 
all self-consciousness passed away again, drowned in 
his deeper self. 

It was a strange fantasia that poured itself through 
his obedient fingers; it held the wistful chants of 
ancient ritual, the festival roulades and plaintive yearn- 
ings of melodious cantors, the sing-song augmentation 
of Talmud-students oscillating in airless study-houses, 
the long, melancholy drone of Psalm-singers in darken- 
ing Sabbath twilights, the rustle of palm-branches and 
sobbings of penitence, the long-drawn notes of the ram’s 
horn pealing through the Terrible Days, the passionate 
proclamation of the Unity, storming the gates of 
heaven. And fused with these merely physical memo- 
ries, there flowed into the music the peace of Sabbath 
evenings and shining candles, the love and wonder of 
childhood’s faith, the fantasy of Rabbinic legend, the 
weirdness of penitential prayers in raw winter dawns, 
the holy joy of the promised Zion, when God would 
wipe away the tears from all faces. 

There were tears to be wiped from his own face when 
he ended, and he wiped them brazenly, unresentful of 


THE HIRELINGS 421 


the frenzied approval of the audience, which now let 
itself go, out of stored-up gratitude, and because this 
must be the last performance. All his vanity, his 
artistic posing, was swallowed up in utter sincerity. He 
did not shut the piano; he sat brooding a moment or 
two in tender reverie. Suddenly he perceived his red- 
haired muse at his side. Ah, she had discovered him at 
last, knew him simultaneously for the genius and the 
patriot, was come to pour out her soul at his feet. But 
why was she mute? Why was she tendering this 
scented letter? Was it because she could not trust 
herself to speak before the crowd? He tore open the 
delicate envelope. Himmel! what was this? Would 
the maestro honour Mrs. Wilhammer by taking tea in 
her cabin? 

He stared dazedly at the girl, who remained respect- 
ful and silent. | 

‘Did you not hear what I was playing?’ he mur- 
mured. 

‘Oh yes — a synagogue medley,’ she replied quietly. 
‘They publish it on the East Side, nicht wahr ?? 

‘East Side?’ He was outraged. ‘I know nothing 
of East Side.’ Her absolute unconsciousness of his 
spiritual tumult, her stolidity before this spectacle of 
his triumphant genius, her matter-of-fact acceptance of 
his racial affinity, her refusal to be impressed by the 
heroism of a Hebrew pianoforte solo, all she said and 
did not say, jarred upon his quivering nerves, chilled 


422 THE HIRELINGS 


his high emotion. ‘Will you say I shall have much 
pleasure?’ he added coldly. 

The red-haired maid nodded and was gone. Rozen- 
offski went mechanically to his cabin, scarcely seeing the 
worshippers he plodded through; presently he became 
aware that he was changing his linen, brushing his best 
frock-coat, thrilling with pleasurable excitement. 

Anon he was tapping at the well-known door. A 
voice — of another sweetness — cried ‘Come!’ and in- 
stantly he had the sensation that his touch on the 
handle had launched upon him, as by some elaborate 
electric contrivance, a tall and beautiful American, a 
rustling tea-gown, a shimmer of rings, a reek of 
patchouli, and a flood of compliment. 

‘So delightful of you to come —I know you men 
of genius are jarouches—it was awfully insolent 
of me, I know, but you have forgiven me, haven’t 
you?’ 

‘The pleasure is mine, gracious lady,’ he murmured 
in German. 

‘Ach, so you are a German,’ she replied in the same 
tongue. ‘I thought no American or Englishman 
could have so much divine fire. You see, mein Herr, 
I do not even know your name — only your genius. 
Every afternoon I have lain here, lapped in your music, 
but I might never have had the courage to thank you, 
had you not played that marvellous thing just now — 
such delicious heartbreak, such adorable gaiety, and 


THE HIRELINGS 423 


now and then the thunder of the gods! I’m afraid 
you'll think me very ignorant — it wasn’t Grieg, was 
it?’ 

He looked uncomfortable. ‘Nothing so good, I fear 
—a mere impromptu of my own.’ 

‘Your own!’ She clapped her jewelled hands in 
girlish delight. ‘Oh, where can I get it?’ 

‘East Side,’ some mocking demon tried to reply; 
but he crushed her down, and replied uneasily: ‘You 
can’t get it. It just came to me this afternoon. It 
came — and it has gone.’ 

‘What a pity!’ But she was visibly impressed by 
this fecundity and riotous extravagance of genius. 
‘I do hope you will try to remember it.’ 

‘Impossible — it was just a mood.’ 

‘And to think of all the other moods I seem to have 
missed! Why have I not heard you in America?’ 

He grew red. ‘I—TI haven’t been playing there,’ 
he murmured. ‘You see, I’m not much known outside 
a few European circles.’ Then, summoning up all his 
courage, he threw down his name ‘Rozenoffski’ like 
a bomb, and the red of his cheeks changed to the pallor 
of apprehension. But no explosion followed, save of 
enthusiasm. Evidently, the episode so lurid to his 
own memory had left no impress on hers. 

‘Oh, but America must know you, Herr Rozenoffski. 
You must promise me to come back in the fall, give 
me the glory of launching you.’ And, seeing the cloud 


424 THE HIRELINGS 


on his face, she cried: ‘You must, you must, you 
must!’ clapping her hands at each ‘must.’ 

He hesitated, distracted between rapture and anxiety 
lest she should remember. 

“You have never heard of me, of course,’ she per- 
sisted humbly; ‘but positively everybody has played at 
my house in Chicago.’ 

‘Ach so!’ he muttered. Had he perhaps misinter- 
preted and magnified the attitude of these Americans? 
Was it possible that Mrs. Wilhammer had really been 
too ill to see him? She looked frail and feverish 
behind all her brilliant beauty. Or had she not even 
seen his letter? had her secretary presumed to guard 
her from Semitic invaders? Or was she deliberately 
choosing to forget and forgive his Jewishness? In any 
case, best let sleeping dogs lie. He was being sought; 
it would be the silliest of social blunders to recall that 
he had already been rejected. 

‘It is years since Chicago had a real musical sensa- 
tion,’ pleaded the temptress. 

‘I’m afraid my engagements will not permit me to 
return this autumn,’ he replied tactfully. 

‘Do you take sugar?’ she retorted unexpectedly; 
then, as she handed him his cup, she smiled archly 
into his eyes. ‘You can’t shake me off, you know; I 
shall follow you about Europe — to all your concerts.’ 

When he left her — after inscribing his autograph, his 
- permanent Munich address, and the earliest possible date 


THE HIRELINGS 425 


for his Chicago concert, in a dainty diary brought in by 
her red-haired maid — his whole being was swelling, ex- 
panding. He had burst the coils of this narrow tribal- 
ism that had suddenly retwined itself round him; he 
had got back again from the fusty conventicles and the 
sunless Ghettos — back to spacious salons and radiant 
hostesses and the great free life of art. He drew deep 
breaths of sea-air as he paced the deck, strewn so thickly 
with pleasant passengers to whom he felt drawn in a 
renewed sense of the human brotherhood. Rishus, 
forsooth ! 


A Ny Ae 


EN 






d 
el sei 


O N 
ah HOM vi, 
AMIS wie 


¥v I 
ni AL 
Wet 


i) , an it ae 





SAMOOBORONA 





SAMOOBORONA 


I 


MILovKA was to be the next place reddened on the 
map of Holy Russia. The news of the projected Jew- 
ish massacre in this little Polish town travelled to the 
Samooborona (Self-Dejence) Headquarters in Southern 
Russia through the indiscretion of a village pope who 
had had a drop of blood too much. It appeared that 
Milovka, though remote from the great centres of dis- 
turbance, had begun to seethe with political activity, 
and even to publish a newspaper, so that it was neces- 
sary to show by a first-class massacre that true Russian 
men were still loyal to God and the Czar. Milovka lay 
off the pogrom route, and had not of itself caught the 
contagion; careful injection of the virus was necessary. 
Moreover, the town was two-thirds Jewish, and con- 
sequently harder to fever with the lust of Jewish blood. 
But in revenge the pogrom would be easier; the Jewish 
quarter formed a practically separate town; no asking 
of dvorniks (janitors) to point out the Jewish apart- 
ments, no arming one’s self with photographs of the 
victims; one had but to run amuck among these low 
wooden houses, the humblest of which doubtless oozed 


with inexhaustible subterranean wealth. 
429 


430 SAMOOBORONA 


David Ben Amram was hurriedly despatched to 
Milovka to organize a local self-defence corps. He 
carried as many pistols as could be stowed away in a 
violin-case, which, with a music-roll holding cartridges, 
was an obtrusive feature of his luggage. The winter 
was just beginning, but mildly. The sun shone over 
the broad plains, and as David’s train carried him 
towards Milovka, his heart swelled with thoughts of 
the Maccabean deeds to be wrought there by a regen- 
erated Young Israel. But the journey was long. 
Towards the end he got into conversation with an old 
Russian peasant who, so far from sharing in the general 
political effervescence, made a long lament over the 
good old days of serfdom. ‘Then, one had not to 
think — one ate and drank. Now, it is all toil and 
trouble.’ 

‘But you were whipped at your lord’s pleasure,’ 
David reminded him. 

‘He was a nobleman,’ retorted the peasant with 
dignity. 

David fell silent. The Jew, too, had grown to kiss 
the rod. But it was not even a nobleman’s rod; any 
moujik, any hooligan, could wield it. But, thank 
Heaven, this breed of Jew was passing away — killed 
by the pogroms. It was their one virtue. 

At the station he hired a ramshackle droshky, and 
told his Jewish driver to take him to the best inn. 
Seated astride the old-fashioned bench of the vehicle, 


SAMOOBORONA 431 


and grasping his violin-case like a loving musician, as 
they jolted over the rough roads, he broached the 
subject of the Jewish massacres. 

‘Bé!’ commented the driver, shrugging his shoulders. 
‘We are in Goluth (exile)!’ He spoke with resignation, 
but not with apprehension, and David perceived at 
once that Milovka would not be easy to arouse. As 
every man thought every other man mortal, so Milovka 
regarded the massacres as a terrible reality — for other 
towns. It was no longer even shocked; Kishineff had 
been a horror almost beyond belief, but Jew-massacres 
had since become part of the natural order, which babes 
were born into. 


ti 


The landlord shook his head. 

‘All our rooms are full.’ 

David, still hugging his violin-case, looked at the 
dirty, mustard-smeared tablecloth on the long table, 
and at the host’s brats playing on the floor. If this 
was the best, what in Heaven’s name awaited him 
elsewhere ? 

‘For how long?’ he asked. 

The landlord shrugged his shoulders like the driver. 
‘Am I the All-knowing ?’ 

He wore a black velvet cap, but not with the apex 
that would have professed piety. Its square cut indi- 
cated to the younger generation that he was a man of the 


432 SAMOOBORONA 


world, in touch with the times; to the old its material 
and hue afforded sufficient guarantee of ritual orthodoxy. 
He was a true host, the friend of all who eat and drink. 

‘But how many rooms have you?’ inquired David. 

‘And how many shall I have but one?’ protested 
the landlord. 

‘Only one room!’ David turned upon the driver. 
‘And you said this was the best inn! I suppose it’s 
your brother-in-law’s.’ 

‘And what do I make out of it, if it is?’ answered 
the driver. ‘You see he can’t take you.’ 

‘Then why did you bring me?’ 

‘Because there is no room anywhere else either.’ 

‘What!’ David stared. 

‘Law of Moses!’ corroborated the landlord good- 
humouredly, ‘you’ve just come at the recruiting. The 
young men have flocked here from all the neighbouring 
villages to draw their numbers. There are heathen 
peasants in all the Jewish inns — eating kosher,’ he 
added, with a chuckle. 

David frowned. But he reflected instantly that if 
this was so, the pogrom would probably be postponed 
till the Christian conscripts had been packed off to 
their regiments or the lucky ones back to their villages. 
He would have time, therefore, to organize his Jewish 
corps. Yes, he reflected in grim amusement, Russia 
and he would be recruiting simultaneously. Still, 
where was he to sleep? 


SAMOOBORONA 433 


“You can have the /ezhanka,’ said the host, following 
his thoughts. 

David looked ruefully at the high stove. Well, 
there were worse beds in winter than the top of a stove. 
And perhaps to bestow himself and his violin in such 
very public quarters would be the safest way of divert- 
ing police attention. ‘Conspirators, please copy,’ he 
thought, with a smile. Anyhow, he was very tired. 
He could refresh himself here; the day was yet young; 
time enough to find a better lodging. 

‘Bring in the luggage,’ he said resignedly. 

‘Tea?’ said the host, hovering over the samovar. 

‘Haven’t you a drop of vodka?’ 

The landlord held up hands of horror. ‘Mono- 
polja ? (monopoly),’ he cried. 

‘Haven’t they left any Jewish licenses?’ asked 
David. 

‘Not unless one mixed holy water with the vodka, 
like the baptized Benjamin,’ said the landlord with 
grim humour. He added hastily: ‘But his inn is even 
fuller than mine, four beds in the room.’ 

It appeared that the dinner was already over, and 
David could obtain nothing but half-warmed remains. 
However, hunger and hope gave sauce to the miserable 
meal, and he profited by the absence of custom to 
pump the landlord anent the leading citizens. 

‘But you will not get violin lessons from any of 


them,’ his host warned him. ‘Tinowitz the corn-factor 
2F 


434 SAMOOBORONA 


has daughters who are said to read Christian story- 
books, but is it likely he will risk their falling in love 
with a young man whose hair and clothes are cut like 
a Christian’s? Not that I share his prejudices, of 
course. I have seen the great world, and understand 
that it is possible to carry a handkerchief on the Sab- 
bath and still be a good man.’ 

‘I haven’t come to give lessons in music,’ said David 
bluntly, ‘but in shooting.’ 

‘Shooting?’ The landlord stared. ‘Aren’t you a 
Jew, then, sir? I beg your pardon.’ His voice had 
suddenly taken on the same ring as when he addressed 
the Poritz (Polish nobleman). His oleaginous familiar- 
ity was gone. 

‘Salachti! (I have forgiven),’ said David in Hebrew, 
and laughed at the man’s bemused visage. ‘Don’t 
you think, considering what has been happening, it is 
high time the Jews of Milovka learned to shoot?’ 

The landlord looked involuntarily round the room 
for a possible spy. ‘Guard your tongue!’ he mur- 
mured, terror-stricken. 

David laughed on. ‘You, my friend, shall be my 
first pupil.’ 

‘God forbid! And I must beg you to find other 
lodgings.’ 

David smiled grimly at this first response to his 
mission. ‘I dare say I shall find another stove,’ he 
said cheerfully — at which the landlord, who had never 


SAMOOBORONA 435 


in his life taken such a decisive step, began to think he 
had gone too far. ‘You will take the advice of a man 
who knows the world,’ he said in a tone of compromise, 
‘and throw all those crazy notions into the river where 
you cast your sins at New Year. A young, fine- 
looking man like you! Why, I can find you a Shidduch 
(marriage) that will keep you in clover the rest of your 
life.’ 

‘Ha! ha! ha! How do you know I’m not married?’ 

“Married men don’t go shooting so lightheartedly. 
Come, let me take you in hand; my commission is a 
very small percentage of the dowry.’ 

‘Ah, so you’re a regular Shadchan (marriage-broker).’ 

‘And how else should I live? Do you think I get 
fat on this inn? But people stay here from all towns 
around; I get to know a great circle of marriageable 
parties. I can show you a much larger stock than the 
ordinary Shadchan.’ 

‘But I am so Junk (irreligious).’ 

‘Nu! Let your ear-locks grow — the dowry grows 
with them.’ Mine host had quite recovered his greasy 
familiarity. 

‘I can’t wait for my locks to grow,’ said David, with 
a sudden thought. ‘But if you care to introduce me 
to Tinowitz, you will not fail to profit by it, if the thing 
turns out well.’ 

The landlord rubbed his hands. ‘Now you speak 
like a sage.’ 


436 SAMOOBORONA 


III 


Tinowitz read the landlord’s Hebrew note, and sur- 
veyed the suitor disapprovingly. And disapproval did 
not improve his face —a face in whose grotesque 
features David read a possible explanation of his sur- 
plus stock of daughters. 

‘I cannot say I am very taken with you,’ the corn- 
factor said. ‘Nor is it possible to give you my young- 
est daughter. I have other plans. Even the 
eldest f 

David waved his hand. ‘I told my landlord as 
much. Am I a Talmud-sage that I should thus 
aspire? Forgive and forget my Chutzpah (impu- 
dence) !’ 

‘But the eldest — perhaps — with a smaller dowry —’ 

‘To tell the truth, Panze Tinowitz, it was the landlord 
who turned my head with false hopes. I came here 
not to promote marriages, but to prevent funerals !’ 

The corn-factor gasped, ‘Funerals !’ 

‘A pogrom.is threatened 4 

‘Open not your mouth to Satan!’ reprimanded Tino- 








witz, growing livid. 

‘If you prefer silence and slaughter ——’ said David, 
with a shrug. 

‘It is impossible — here !’ 

‘And why not here, as well as in the six hundred and 
thirty-eight other towns?’ 


SAMOOBORONA 437 


‘In those towns there must have been bad blood; 
here Jew and Russian live together like brothers.’ 

‘Cain and Abel were brothers. There were many 
peaceful years while Cain tilled the ground and Abel 
pastured his sheep.’ 

The Biblical reference was more convincing to Tino- 
witz than a wilderness of arguments. 

‘Then, what do you propose?’ came from his white 
lips. 

‘To form a branch of the Samooborona. You 
must first summon a meeting of householders.’ 

‘What for ?’ 

‘For a general committee —and for the ex- 
penses.’ 

‘But how can we hold a meeting? The police 

“There’s the synagogue.” 

‘Profane the synagogue !’ 

‘Did not the Jews always fly to the synagogue when 
there was danger ?’ 

“Yes, but to pray.’ 

‘We will pray by pistol.’ 

‘Guard your tongue !’ 

‘Guard your daughters.’ 

‘The Uppermost will guard them.’ 

‘The Uppermost guards them through me, as He 
feeds them through you. For the last time I ask you, 
will you or will you not summon me a meeting of 
householders ?’ 


> 





438 SAMOOBORONA 


‘You rush like a wild horse. I thank Heaven you 
will not be my son-in-law.’ 

Tinowitz ended by demanding time to think it over. 
David was. to call the next day. 

When, after a sleepless night on the stove, he betook 
himself to the corn-factor’s house, he found it barred 
and shuttered. The neighbours reported that Tino- 
witz had gone off on sudden business, taking his wife 
and daughters with him for a little jaunt. 


IV 


The flight of Tinowitz brought two compensations, 
however. David was promoted from the stove to the 
bedroom. For the lodger he replaced had likewise 
departed hurriedly, and when it transpired that the 
landlord had betrothed this young man to the second 
of the Tinowitz girls, David divined that the corn-factor 
had made sure of a son-in-law. His other compensa- 
tion was to find in the remaining bed a strapping young 
Jew named Ezekiel Leven, who had come up from an 
outlying village for the military lottery, and who proved 
to be a carl after his own heart. Half the night the 
young heroes planned the deeds of derringdo they 
might do for their people. Ezekiel Leven was indeed 
an ideal lieutenant, for he belonged to one of the rare 
farming colonies, and was already handy with his gun. 
He had even some kinsfolk in Milovka, and by their 
aid the Rabbi and a few householders were hurriedly 


SAMOOBORONA 439 


prevailed upon to assemble in the bedroom on a business 
declared important. Ezekiel himself must, unfortu- 
nately, be away at the drawing, but he promised to 
hasten back to the meeting. 

Each member strolled in casually, ordered a glass of 
tea, and drifted upstairs. The landlord, uneasily sniff- 
ing peril and profit, and dismally apprehending pistol 
lessons, left the inn to his wife, and stole up likewise 
to the fateful bedroom. Here, after protesting fearfully 
that they would ruin him by this conspirative meeting, 
he added that he was not out of sympathy with the 
times, and volunteered to stand sentinel. « Accordingly, 
he was posted at the ragged window-curtain, where, 
with excess of caution, he signalled whenever he saw a 
Christian, in uniform or not. At every signal David’s 
oratory ceased as suddenly as if it had been turned off 
at the main, and the gaberdined figures, distributed 
over the two beds and the one chair, gripped one 
another nervously. But David was used to oratory 
under difficulties. He lived on the same terms with 
the police as the most desperate criminals, and a 
foreigner who should have witnessed the secret meetings 
at which tactics were discussed, arms distributed, 
scouts despatched, and night-watches posted, would 
have imagined him engaged in a rebellion instead of 
in an attempt to strengthen the forces of law and order. 
He had come to Milovka, he explained, to warn 
them that the Black Hundreds were soon to be loosed 


440 SAMOOBORONA 


upon the Jewish quarter. But no longer must the Jew 
go like a lamb to the shambles. Too long, when 
smitten, had he turned the other cheek, only to get it 
smitten too. They must defend themselves. He was 
there to form a branch of the Samooborona. Browning 
revolvers must be purchased. ‘The wood-choppers 
must be organized as a column of axe-bearers. ‘There 
would be needed also an ambulance corps, with ban- 
dages, dressings, etc. 

The shudder at the first mention of the pogrom was 
not so violent as that which followed the mention of 
bandages. Each man felt warm blood trickling down 
his limbs. ‘To what end, then, had he escaped the con- 
scription? ‘The landlord at the window wiped the cold 
beads off his brow, and was surprised to find his hand 
not scarlet. 

‘Brethren,’ Koski the timber-merchant burst out, 


‘This is a Haman in disguise. ‘To hold firearms is the 





surest way of provoking 

‘I don’t say you shall hold firearms!’ David inter- 
rupted. ‘It is your young men who must defend the 
town. But the Kahal (congregation) must pay the 
expenses — say, ten thousand roubles to _ start 
with.’ 

‘Ten thousand roubles for a few pistols!’ cried 
Mendel the horse-dealer. ‘It is a swindle.’ 

David flushed. ‘We have to buy three pistols for 
every one we get safely into the town. But one re- 


SAMOOBORONA 441 


volver may save ten thousand roubles of property, not 
to mention your life.’ 

‘It will end our lives, not save them!’ persisted the 
timber-merchant. ‘This is a plot to destroy us!’ 

A growl of assent burst from the others. 

‘My friends,’ said David quietly. ‘A plot to destroy 
you has already been hatched; the question is, are you 
going to be destroyed like rats or like men?’ 

‘Pooh!’ said the horse-dealer. ‘This is not the first 
time we have been threatened, if not with death, at 
least with extra taxes; but we have always sent Shiad- 
lonim (ambassadors). We will make a collection, 
and the president of the Kahal shall go at once to the 
Governor, and present it to him’ — here Mendel winked 
— ‘to enable him to take measures against the pogrom.’ 

‘The Governor is in the plot,’ said David. 

‘He can be bought out,’ said the timber-merchant. 

‘Pogroms are more profitable than presents,’ rejoined 
David drily. ‘Let us rather prepare bombs.’ A fresh 
shudder traversed the beds and the chairs, and agitated 
the window-curtain. 

‘Bombs! Presents!’ burst forth the old Rabbi. 
‘These are godless instruments. We are in the hands 
of the Holy One —blessed be He! The Shomer 
(Guardian) of Israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth.’ 

‘Neither does the Shochet (slaughterer) of Israel,’ 
said David savagely. 

‘Hush! Epicurean!’ came from every quarter at 


442 SAMOOBORONA 


this grim jest; for the Shomer and the Shochet are the 
official twain of ritual butchery. 

The landlord, seeing how the tide was turning, 
added, ‘Brazen Marshallik (buffoon) !’ 

‘I will appoint a day of fasting and prayer,’ con- 
cluded the Rabbi solemnly. 

A breath of reassurance wafted through the room. 
‘And I, Rabbi,’ said Giitels the grocer, ‘will supply the 
synagogue with candles to equal in length the graves 
of all your predecessors.’ 

‘May thy strength increase, Giitels!’ came the uni- 
versal gratitude, and the landlord at the window- 
curtain drew a great sigh of relief. 

‘Still, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘if I may intrude my 
humble opinion — Reb Mendel’s advice is also good. 
God is, of course, our only protection. But there can 
be no harm in getting, /ehavdil (not to compare them), 
the Governor’s protection too.’ 

‘True, true.’ And the faces grew still cheerier. 

‘In God’s name, wake up!’ David burst forth. ‘In 
Samooborona lies your only salvation. Give the money 
to us, not to the Governor. We can meet and practise 
in your Talmud-Torah Hall !’ 

‘The holy hall of study!’ gasped the Rabbi. ‘Given 
over to unlawful meetings !’ 

‘The hooligans will meet there, if you don’t,’ said Da- 
vid grimly. ‘Don’t you see it is the safest place for us? 
The police associate it only with learned weaklings.’ 


SAMOOBORONA 443 


‘Hush, Haman!’ said the timber-merchant, and rose 
to go. David’s voice changed to passion; memories 
of things he had seen came over him as in a red mist: 
an old man scalped with a sharp ladle; a white-hot 
poker driven through a woman’s eye; a baby’s skull 
ground under a True Russian’s heel. ‘Bourgeois!’ he 
thundered, ‘I will save you despite yourselves.’ The 
landlord signalled in a frenzy, but David continued 
recklessly, ‘Will you never learn manli : 

They flung themselves upon him in a panic, and held 
him hand-gagged and struggling upon the bed. 

Suddenly a new figure burst into the room. There 





was a blood-freezing instant in which all gave themselves 
up for lost. Their grip on David relaxed. Then the 
mist cleared, and they saw it was only Ezekiel Leven. 
‘Blessed art thou who comest !’ ‘cried David, jumping 
to his feet. ‘You and I, Ezekiel, will save Milovka.’ 
‘Alas!’ Ezekiel groaned. ‘I drew a low number — 
I go to fight for Russia.’ 


V 


Fifteen thousand roubles were soon collected for the 
Governor, but even before they were presented to him 
the Rabbi, in mortal terror of that firebrand of a David, 
had rushed to inquire whether Self-Defence was legal, 
and might the Talmud-Torah Hall be legitimately used 
for drilling. Sharp came an order that Jews found 
with firearms or in conclave for non-religious purposes 


444 SAMOOBORONA 


should be summarily shot. And so, when the Shtad- 
lonim arrived with the fifteen thousand roubles, the 
Governor was able to point out severely that if a 
pogrom did occur they would have only themselves to 
blame. ‘The Jews of Milovka had begun to carry pistols 
like revolutionaries; they planned illegal assemblies 
in halls; was it to be wondered at if the League of True 
Russians grew restive? However, he would do his 
best with these inadequate roubles to have extra precau- 
tions taken, but let them root out the evil weeds that 
had sprung up in their midst, else even his authority 
might be overborne by the righteous indignation of the 
loyal children of the Little Father. Tremblingly the 
Ambassadors crept back with their empty money- 
bags. 

Poor David now found it impossible to get anybody 
to a meeting. His landlord had forbidden any more 
gatherings in the inn, and his original audience would 
have called as a deputation upon David to beg him to 
withdraw from the town, but that might have been 
considered a conspirative meeting. So one of the 
Ambassadors was sent to inform the landlord instead. 

‘Don’t you think I’ve already ordered him off my 
premises ?’ 

‘But he is still here!’ 

‘Alas! He threatens to shoot me — or anybody who 
massers (informs),’ said the poor landlord. 

The Ambassador shivered. 


SAMOOBORONA 445 


“As if I would betray a brother-in-Israel !’ added the 
landlord reproachfully. 

‘No, no—of course not,’ said the Ambassador. 
“These fellows are best left alone; they wear fuses under 
their waistcoats instead of T'sitsith (ritual fringes). 
Let us hope, however, a sudden death may rid us of 
him.’ 

‘Amen,’ said the landlord fervently. 

Not that David had any reason for clinging to so 
squalid a hostel. But his blood was up, and he took a 
malicious pleasure in inflicting his perilous presence 
upon his prudential host. 

Reduced now to buttonholing individuals, he con- 
soled himself with the thought that the population was 
best tackled by units. One fool or coward was enough 
to infect or betray a whole gathering. 

Still intent on the sinews of war, he sallied out after 
breakfast, and approached Erbstein the Banker. 
Erbstein held up his hands. ‘But I’ve just given a 
thousand roubles to guard us from a pogrom!’ 

‘That was for the Governor. Give me only a hun- 
dred for Self-Defence.’ 

The Banker puffed tranquilly at his big cigar. 
‘But our rights are bound to come in the end. We 
can only get them gradually. Full rights now are non- 
sense — impossible. It is bad tactics to ask for what 
you cannot get. Only in common with Russia can our 


emancipation ——’ 


446 SAMOOBORONA 


‘I am not talking of our rights, but of our lives.’ 
David grew impatient. 

Being a Banker, Erbstein never listened, though he 
invariably replied. His success in finance had made 
him an authority upon religion and politics. 

‘Trust the Octobrists,’ he said cheerily. 

‘I’d rather trust our revolvers.’ 

The Banker’s cigar fell from his mouth. 

‘An anarchist! like my nephew Simon!’ 

David began to realize the limitations of the financial 
intellect. He saw that to get ideas into Bankers’ brains 
is even more difficult than to get cheques from their 
pockets. Still, there was that promising scapegrace 
Simon! He hurried out on his scent, and ran him to 
earth in a cosy house near the town gate. Simon 
practised law, it appeared, and his surname was 
Rubensky. 

The young barrister, informed of his uncle’s accusa- 
tion of anarchism, laughed contemptuously. ‘Bour- 
geois! Every idea that makes no money he calls 
anarchy. As a matter of fact, I’m the exact opposite 
of an anarchist: I’m a socialist. I belong to the 
P. P.S. We’re not even revolutionary like the S. R.’s.’ 

‘I’m afraid I’m a great ignoramus,’ said David. ‘I 
don’t even know what all these letters stand for.’ 

Simon Rubensky looked pityingly as at a bourgeois. 

‘S. R.’s are the silly Social Revolutionists; I belong 
to the Polish Party of Socialism.’ 


SAMOOBORONA 447 


‘Ah!’ said David, with an air of comprehension. 
‘And I belong to the Jewish Party of Self-Defence! I 
hope youll join it too.’ 

The young lawyer shook his head. ‘A separate 
Jewish party! No, no! That would be putting back 
the clock of history. The non-isolation of the Jew is 
an unconditional historic necessity. Our emancipation 
must be worked out in common with Russia’s.’ 

‘Oh, then you agree with your uncle!’ 

‘With that bourgeois! Never! But we are Poles 
of the Mosaic Faith — Jewish Poles, not Polish 
Jews.’ 

‘The hooligans are murdering both impartially.’ 

‘And the Intellectuals equally,’ rejoined Simon. 

‘But the Intellectuals will triumph over the Reac- 
tionaries,’ said David passionately, ‘and then both will 
trample on the Jews. Didn’t the Hungarian Jews join 
Kossuth? And yet after Hungary’s freedom was 
won --—’ 

Simon’s wife and sister here entered the room, and 
he introduced David smilingly as a Ghetto reactionary. 
The young women — sober-clad students from a Swiss 
University — opened wide shocked eyes. 

‘So young, too!’ Simon’s wife murmured wonder- 
ingly. 

‘Would you have me stand by and see our people 
murdered ?’ 

‘Certainly,’ she said, ‘rather than see the Zezétgeist 


448 SAMOOBORONA 


set back. The unconditional historic necessity will 
carry us on of itself towards a better social state.’ 

‘There you go with your Marx and your Hegel!’ 
cried Simon’s sister. ‘I object to your historic mate- 
rialism. With Fichte, I assert : 

‘She is an S. R.,’ Simon interrupted her to explain. 

‘Ah,’ said David. ‘Nota P. P. S. like you and your 
wife.’ 

‘Simon, did you tell him I was a P. P. S.?’ inquired 
his wife indignantly. 

‘No, no, of course not. A Ghetto reactionary does 
not understand modern politics. My wife is an S. D., 
I regret to say.’ 

‘But I have heard of Social Democrats !’ said David 
triumphantly. 





Simon’s sister sniffed. ‘Of course! Because they 
are a bourgeois party — risking nothing, waiting pas- 
sively till the Revolution drops into their hands.’ 

‘The name of bourgeois would be better applied to 
those who include the landed peasants among their 
forces,’ said Simon’s wife angrily. ; 

‘If I might venture to suggest,’ said David sooth- 
ingly, ‘all these differences would be immaterial if you 
joined the Samooborona. I could make excellent use 
of you ladies in the ambulance department.’ 

‘Outrageous!’ cried Simon angrily. ‘Our place is 
shoulder to shoulder with our fellow-Poles.’ 

Simon’s sister intervened gently. Perhaps the men- 


SAMOOBORONA 449 


tion of ambulances had awakened sympathy in her 
S. R. soul. ‘You ought to look among your own Party,’ 
she said. 

‘My Party?’ 

‘The Ghetto reactionaries — Zionists, Territorialists, 
Itoists, or whatever they call themselves nowa- 
days.’ 

‘Are there any here?’ cried David eagerly. 

‘One heard of nothing else,’ cried Simon bitterly. 
‘Fortunately, when the police found they weren’t 
really emigrating to Zion or Uganda, the meetings were 
stopped.’ 

David eagerly took down names. Simon particularly 
recommended two young men, Grodsky and Lerkoff, 
who had at least the grace of Socialism. 

But Grodsky, David found, had his own panacea. 
‘Only the S. S.’s,’ he said, ‘can save Israel.’ 

“What are S. S.’s?’ David asked. 

‘Socialistes Sionistes.’ 

‘But can’t there be Socialism outside Zion ?’ 

‘Of course. We have evolved from Zionism. The 
unconditional historic necessity is for a land, but not for 
a particular land. Our Minsk members already call 
themselves S. T.’s — Socialist Territorialists.’ 

‘But while awaiting your territory, there are the 
hooligans,’ David reminded him. ‘Simon Rubensky 
thought you would be a good man for the self-defence 
corps.’ 

2G 


450 SAMOOBORONA 


‘Join Rubensky! A P. P. S.! Never will I asso- 
ciate with a bourgeois like that !’ | 

‘He isn’t joining.’ 

The S. S. hesitated. ‘I must consult my fellow- 
members. I must write to headquarters.’ 

‘Letters do not travel very quickly or safely nowa- 
days.’ 

‘But Party Discipline is everything,’ urged Grodsky. 

David left him, and hunted up Lerkoff, who proved 
to be a doctor. 

‘I want to get together a Samooborona branch,’ he 
explained. ‘Herr Grodsky has half promised f 

‘That bourgeois!’ cried Lerkoff in disgust. ‘We 
can have nothing to do with traitors like that!’ 

‘Why are they traitors?’ David asked. 

‘All Territorialists are traitors. We Poali Zion 
must jealously guard the sacred flame of Socialism and 
Nationality, since only in Palestine can our social 
problem be solved.’ 

‘Why only in Palestine?’ inquired David mildly. 

The P. Z. glared. ‘Palestine is an unconditional 
historic necessity. The attempt to form a Jewish 
State elsewhere can only result in failure and disap- 
pointment. Do you not see how the folk-instinct leads 
them to Palestine? No less than four thousand have 
gone there this year.’ 

‘And a hundred and fifty thousand to America.. 
How about that folk-instinct ?’ 





SAMOOBORONA 451 


_ “Oh, these are the mere bourgeois. I see you are an 
Americanist Assimilator.’ 

‘Iam no more an A. A. than lam a Z. Z.,’ said David 
tartly, adding with a smile, ‘if there 7s such a thing as 
Wa ay Ad 

‘Would to Heaven there were not!’ said Lerkoff 


fervently. ‘It is these miserable Zioni-Zionists, with 
? 





their incapacity for political concepts, who 

Milovka, amid all its medievalism, possessed a few 
incongruous telephones, and one of these now started 
ringing violently in Dr. Lerkoff’s study. 

‘Ah!’ he exclaimed, ‘talk of the devil. There is 
a man who combines all the worst qualities of the 
Z. Z.’s and the Mizrachi. He also imagines he 
has a throat disease due to swallowing flecks of the 
furs he deals in.’ After which harangue he collogued 
amiably with his patient, and said he would come in- 
stantly. 

‘Hasn’t he the disease, then?’ asked David. 

“He has no disease except too much vanity and too 
much money.’ 

‘While you cure him of the first, I should like to try 
my hand at the second,’ said David laughingly. 

‘Oh, I'll introduce you, if you let me off.’ 

‘You I don’t ask for money, but your medical ser- 
vices would be invaluable. Milovka is in danger.’ 

‘Milovka to the deuce!’ cried Lerkoff. ‘Our future 
lies not in Russia.’ 


452 SAMOOBORONA 


‘I talk of our present. Do let me appoint you army 
surgeon.’ 

‘Next year—in Jerusalem!’ replied the doctor 
airily. 


VI 


Lerkoff asked David to wait in another room while 
he saw Herr Cantberg professionally. ‘There was an 
Ark with scrolls of the Law in the room, betiding a piety 
and a purse beyond the normal. Presently Lerkoff 
reappeared chuckling. 

‘He knows all about you, you infamous rascal,’ he 
sald. 

‘You have told him?’ 

‘He told me; he always knows everything. You 
are a baptized police spy, posing asa P. P.S. I sup- 
pose he’s heard of your visit to Herr Rubensky.’ 

‘But I shall undeceive him !’ 

‘Not if you want his money. Such a blow to his 
vanity would cost you dear. Go in; I did not tell him 
you were the young man he was telling me of. I 
must fly.” The P. Z. shook David’s hand. ‘Don’t 
forget he’s the bourgeois type of Zionist; his object 
is not to create the future, but to resurrect the dead 
past.’ 

‘And mine is to keep alive the living present. Won’t 
you ?’? But the doctor was gone. 

The Mizrachi Z. Z. proved unexpectedly small in 





SAMOOBORONA 453 


stature and owl-like in expression; but his ‘Be seated, 
sir — be seated; what can I do for you?’ had the grand 
manner. It evoked a resentful chord in David. 

‘It is something I propose to do for you,’ he said 
bluntly. ‘Milovka is in danger.’ 

‘It is, indeed,’ said the M. Z. Z. ‘When men like 
Dr. Lerkoff (in whose company I was sorry to see you) 
command a hearing, it is in deadly danger. An excel- 
lent physician, but you know the Talmudical saying: 
“Hell awaits even the best of physicians.” And he 
calls himself a Zionist! Bah! he’s more dangerous 
than that young renegade spy who dubs _ himself 
PRS: 

‘But he seems very zealous for Zion,’ said David un- 
easily. 

Herr Cantberg shook his head dolefully. ‘He’d 
introduce vaccination and serum-insertions instead of 
the grand old laws. As if any human arrangement 
could equal the wisdom of Sinai! And he actually 
scoffs at the Restoration of the Sacrifices !’ 

‘But do you propose to restore them?’ David was 
astonished. 

The owl’s eyes shone. ‘What have we sacrificed our- 
selves for, all these centuries, if not for the Sacrifices? 
What has sanctified and illumined the long night of 
our Exile except a vision of the High Priest in his 
jewelled breastplate officiating again at the altar of our 
Holy Temple? Now at last the vision begins to take 


454 SAMOOBORONA 


shape, the hope of Israel begins to shine again. Like 
a rosy cloud, like a crescent moon, like a star in the 
desert, like a lighthouse over lonely seas ——’ 

The telephone impolitely interrupted him. His fine 
frenzy disregarded the ringing, but it jangled his meta- 
phors. ‘But, alas! our people do not see clearly!’ he 
broke off. ‘False prophets, colossally vain — may their 
names be blotted out!—confuse the foolish crowd. 
But the wheat is being sifted from the chaff, the fine 
flour from the bran, the edible herbs from the evil weeds, 
and soon my people will see again that only I ——’ 

The telephone insisted on a hearing. Having refused 
to buy furs at the price it demanded, he resumed: 
‘Territorialist traitors mislead the masses, but in so 
far as they may bring relief to our unhappy people, I 
wish them Godspeed.’ 

‘But what relief can they bring?’ put in David im- 
patiently. ‘Without Self-Defence ——’ 

‘Most true. They will but kill off a few hundred 
people with fever and famine on some savage shore. 
But let them; it will all be to the glory of Zionism ——’ 

‘How so?’ David asked, amazed. 

‘It will show that the godless ideals of materialists 
can never be realized, that only in its old home can 
Israel again be a nation. ‘Then will come the moment 
for Me-to arise ——’ 

‘But the English came from Denmark. And they’re 
nation enough !’ 


SAMOOBORONA 455 


The owl blinked angrily. ‘We are the Chosen People 
—no historic parallel applies to us. As the dove re- 
turned to the ark, as the swallow returns to the lands 
of the spring, as the tide returns to the sands, as the 
stars ’ 

“Yes, yes, I know,’ said David; ‘but where is there 





room in Palestine for the Russian Jews?’ 

‘Where was there room in the Temple for the millions 
who came up at Passover?’ retorted Herr Cantberg 
crushingly. 

The telephone here interposed, offering the furs 
cheaper. | 

‘A godless Bundist!’ the owl explained between 
the deals. 

‘A Bundist!’ David pricked up his ears. From 
the bravest revolutionary party in Russia he could 
surely cull a recruit or two. ‘Who is he?’ 

The owl tried to look noble, producing only a twinkle 
of cunning. ‘Oh, I can’t betray him; after all, he’s a 
brother-in-Israel. Not that he behaves as_ such, 
opposing our candidate for the Duma! Three hundred 
and thirteen roubles,’ he told the telephone sternly. 
‘Not a kopeck more. Eh? What? He’s rung off, 
the blood-sucker!’ He rang him up again. David 
made a note of the number. | 

‘But what have you Zionists to do with the Parlia- 
ment in Russia?’ he inquired of the owl. 

But the owl was haggling with the telephone. ‘Three 


456 | SAMOOBORONA 


hundred and fifteen! What! Do you want to skin 
me, like your martens and sables?’ 

‘You are busy,’ interposed David, fretting at the 
waste of his day. ‘I shall take the liberty of calling 
again.’ 

A telephone-book soon betrayed the Bundist’s shop, 
and David hurried off to enlist him. The shopkeeper 
proved, however, so corpulent and bovine that David’s 
heart sank. But he began bluntly: ‘I know you’re 
a Bundist.’ 

‘A what?’ said the fur-dealer. 

David smiled. ‘Oh, you needn’t pretend with me; 
I’m a fighter myself.’ He let a revolver peep out of his 
hip-pocket. 

‘Help! Gewalt!’ cried the fur-dealer. 

A beardless youth came running out of the back 
room. David laughed. ‘Herr Cantberg told me that 
you were a Bundist,’ he explained to the shop-keeper. 
‘And I came to meet a kindred spirit. But I was 
warned Herr Cantberg is always wrong. VGood- 
morning.’ 

‘Stop!’ cried the youth. ‘Go in, Reb Yitzchok; 
let me deal with this fire-eater.? And as the corpulent 
man retired with an improbable alacrity, he continued 
gravely: ‘This time Herr Cantberg was not more than 
a hundred versts from the truth.’ 

David smiled. ‘You are the Bundist.’ 

‘Hush! Here I am the son-in-law. I study Tal- 


SAMOOBORONA 457 


mud and eat Kest (free food). What news from 
Warsaw ?’ 

‘I want both you and your father-in-law,’ said David 
evasively — ‘his money and your muscles.’ 

‘He gives no money to the Cause, save unwillingly 
what I squeeze out of Cantberg.’ The youth permitted 
himself his first smile. ‘When he deals with that 
bourgeois at the telephone, I always egg him on to 
stand out for more and more, and my profit is half the 
extra roubles we extort. But as for myself, my life, 
of course, is at the disposal of headquarters.’ 

David was moved by this refreshing simplicity. He 
felt a little embarrassment in explaining that head- 
quarters to him meant Samooborona, not Bund. The 
youth’s countenance changed completely. 

‘Defend the Jews!’ he cried contemptuously. 
“What have we to do with the Jewish bourgeoisie?’ 

“The Bund is exclusively Jewish, is it not?’ 

‘Merely because we found the rest of the Revolu- 
tionary body too clumsy for words. It was always 
getting caught, its printing-presses exhumed, its leaders 
buried. So we split off, the better to help our fellow- 
working-men. But we are a Labour party, not a 
Jewish party. We have the whole Russian Revolution 
on our shoulders; how can we throw away our lives for 
the capitalists of the Milovka Ghetto? ‘Then there are 
the elections at hand —I have to work for the Left. 
Ah, here come some of our bourgeois; ask them, if 


458 SAMOOBORONA 


you like. I will keep my father-in-law out of the 
shop.’ 

Two men in close confabulation strolled in, a third 
disconnected, but on their heels. With five Jews the 
concourse soon became a congress. 

One of the couple turned out to be a Progressive 
Pole. He mistook David for a Zionist, and denounced 
him for a foreigner. 

‘We of the P. P. P.,’ he said, ‘will peacefully acquire 
equal rights with our fellow-Poles — nay, we shall be 
allowed to becomes Poles ourselves. But you Zionists 
are less citizens than strangers, and if you were logical, 
you would all ——’ 

‘Where’s your own logic?’ interrupted the discon- 
nected man. ‘Why don’t you join the P. P. N. at 
once P’ 

The Progressive Pole frowned. ‘The Nationalists ! 
They are anti-Semites. I’d as soon join the League of 
True Russian Men.’ 

‘And do you trust the P. P. P.?’ his companion 
asked him. ‘I tell you, Nathan, that only in the 
Progressive Democratic Party, with its belief in the 
equality of all nationalities : 

‘If you want a Party free from anti-Semites,’ 
David intervened desperately, ‘you must join the 
Samoo i 








‘I fear you will get no recruits here,’ interrupted the 
Bundist, not unkindly. He added with asneer: ‘These 


SAMOOBORONA 459 


gentlemen of the P. P. P. and the P. P. N. and the 
P. P. D. are all good Poles.’ 

‘Good Poles!’ echoed David no less bitterly. ‘And 
the Poles voted en bloc to keep every Jewish candidate 
out of the Duma.’ 

‘Even so we must be better Poles then they,’ sub- 
limely replied the member of the P. P. P. ‘We are 
joining even the Clerical Parties of the Right for the 
good of our country. And now that the Party of 
National Concentration { 

‘Go to the Labour Parties,’ advised the P. D. ‘There 
you may perchance find sturdy young men with the 
necessary Ghetto taint.’ Of the four great Labour 
Parties, he proceeded to recommend the P. S. D. as 





the most promising for David’s purposes. ‘Not the 
Bolshewiki faction,’ he added, ‘but the Menshewiki. 
Recruits might also be found in the Proletariat or the 
Peek. 'S. ; 

‘No, I’ve tried the P. P. S.,’ said David. ‘But at 
any rate, gentlemen, since you must all see that the 





defence of our own lives is no undesirable object, a 
>| 





little contribution to our funds 
A violent chorus of protest broke out. It was 
scarcely credible that only four men were speaking. 
All explained elaborately, that they had their own Party 
Funds, and what a tax it was to run their candidates 
for the Duma, not to mention their Party Organ. 
“You see,’ said the Bundist, ‘your only chance lies 


460 SAMOOBORONA 


with the men of no Party, who have only their own 
bourgeois pleasures.’ 

‘Are there such?’ asked David eagerly. 

A universal laugh greeted this inquiry. 

‘Alas, too many!’ everybody told him. ‘Our people 
are such individualists.’ 

‘But where are these individualists?’ cried David 
desperately. 

As if in answer, the bovine proprietor, encouraged by 
the laughter, crept in again. 

‘You still here!’ he murmured to David, taken aback. 

‘Yes, but if you’ll give me a subscription for Jewish 
Self-Defence ; 

‘Jewish Emancipation!’ cried the fur-dealer. ‘Why 
didn’t you say so at first?’ He put his hand in his 
pocket. ‘That’s my Party —or rather the National 
Group in it, the Anti-Zionist faction.’ 

The stern Bundist laughed. ‘No, he doesn’t mean 
he’s a J. E. even of the other faction.’ 

His father-in-law took his hand out of his pocket. 

David cast a rebuking glance at the Bundist. ‘Why 
did you interfere? Perhaps my way may prove the 
shortest to Jewish Emancipation.’ 

His hearers smiled a superior smile, and the fur- 
dealer shook his head. ‘I belong also to the Promo- 
tion of Education Party — I am for peaceful methods,’ 
he announced. 

‘So I perceived,’ said David drily. 





SAMOOBORONA 461 


To be rid of him, the Bundist gave him the address 
of a man who kept aloof from Polish politics —a 
bourgeois cousin of his, Belchevski by name, who might 
just as well be killed off in the Samooborona. 

But even Belchevski turned out to be a Territorialist. 
David imprudently told him he had seen his fellow- 
Territorialist Grodsky, who had half promised —— 

‘Associate with a brainless, bumptious platform 
screamer!’ he screamed. ‘He’s worse than the hysteri- 
cal Zionists. It is a territory we need, not Social- 
ism.’ 

‘I agree. But even more do we need Self-Defence.’ 

‘The only Self-Defence is to leave Russia for a land of 
our Own.’ 

‘Five and a quarter million of us? Why, if two 
ships — one from Libau for the north, and one from 
Odessa for the south — sailed away every week, each 
bearing two thousand passengers, it would take over 
a quarter of acentury. And by that time a new genera- 
tion of us would have grown up.’ 

The Territorialist looked uneasy. 

‘Besides,’ David continued, ‘what new country 
could receive us at the rate of two hundred thousand a 
year? It would be a cemetery, not a country.’ 

The Territorialist smiled disdainfully. ‘Why didn’t 
you say at first you were a bourgeois? The uncondi- 
tional historic necessity which has created the I. T. O. 
may drive at what pace it will; enough that as soon as 


462 SAMOOBORONA 


our autonomous land is ready to receive us, I intend to 
be in the first shipload.’ 

‘Have you this land, then?’ 

‘Not yet. We’ve only had time to draw up the Con- 
stitution. No Socialism as that idiot Grodsky imagines. 
But Democracy. Hereditary privileges will be 
abol i 

‘But what land zs there?’ 

‘Surely there are virgin lands.’ 

‘Even the virgin lands are betrothed!’ said David. 
‘And if there was one still without a lord and master, 
it would probably be a very ugly and sickly virgin. 
And, anyhow, it will be a long wooing. So in the mean- 
time let me teach you to fire a pistol.’ | 

‘With all my heart—but merely to shoot wild beasts.’ 

‘That is all I am asking for,’ said David grimly. 

Encouraged by this semi-success, David boldly called 
upon a tea-merchant quite unknown to him, and asked 
for a subscription to buy revolvers. 

The tea-merchant, who was a small stout man, with 
a black cap of dubious cut, protested vehemently 
against such materialistic measures. Let them put 
their trust in Culiur! To talk Hebrew — therein lay 
Israel’s real salvation. Let little children once again 
lisp in the language of Isaiah and Hosea — that was true 
Zionism. 

‘Then don’t you want the Holy Land?’ asked the 
astonished David. 





SAMOOBORONA 463 


“Merely as a centre of Cultur. Merely as a Uni- 
versity where Herbert Spencer may be studied in the 
tongue of the Psalmist. All the rest is bourgeois 
Zionism. Political Zionism? Economic Zionism? 
Pah! Mere tawdry imitations of heathen politics!’ 

“Then you agree with the Chovevi Zionists !’ 

‘Not at all. Zion is less a place than a state of 
mind. We want Culture — not Agriculture; we want 


the evolutionary efflorescence of Israel’s inner per- 
b] 





sonality 

David fled, only to stumble upon a Nationalist who 
declared that Zionism was a caricature of true Nation- 
alism, and Territorialism a cheap philanthropic sub- 
stitute for it. 

“Then why not join in the Self-Defence of our nation ?’ 
David asked. 

‘I will — when we are on our own soil. Your corps 
is a mere mockery of the military concept.’ 

David found no more comfort in his interview with 
the member of the L. A. E. R., who was convinced that 
only in the League for the Advancement of Equal 
Rights lay the Jew’s true security. It was the one party 
whose success was sure, the only one based upon an 
unconditional historic necessity. 

David’s morning was not, however, to pass without 
the discovery of a man of no Party. And, strangely 
enough, he owed his find to the headache these innu- 
merable Parties caused him. For, going into a chemist’s 


464 SAMOOBORONA 


shop for a powder, he was served by a red-bearded 
Jew whose genial face emboldened him to solicit a 
stock of bandages and antiseptics—in view of a 
possible pogrom. 

‘But the pogroms are over,’ cried the chemist. ‘They 
were but the expiring agonies of the old order. The 
reign of love is at hand, the brotherhood of man is 
beginning, and all races and creeds will henceforth live 
at peace under the new religion of science.’ 

David’s headache rose again triumphant over the 
powder. Even a partisan would be easier to convince 
than this sort of seer. 

‘Why, a pogrom is planned for Milovka!’ 

‘Impossible! Europe would not permit it. America 
would prohibit it. Did you not see the protest even in 
the Australian Parliament? Look on your calendar; 
we have reached the twentieth century, even according 
to the Christian calculation.’ 

David returned hopelessly to his inn. 

Here he saw a burly Jew warming himself at the 
great stove. Before even ordering dinner, he made a 
last desperate attempt to save his morning. 

‘Me join a Jewish Self-Defence!’ The burly Jew 
laughed loud and heartily. ‘Why, I’m a True Be- 
liever !’ 

‘A Meshummad!’ David gasped. Modern as he was, 
the hereditary horror at the baptized apostate over- 
came him. 


SAMOOBORONA 465 


‘Yes—I’m safe enough,’ the Convert laughed. ‘I’ve 
taken the cold-water cure. Besides, I’m the censor of 
Milovka!’ 

‘Eh?’ David looked like a trapped animal. The 
censor smiled on. ‘Don’t scowl at me like the other 
pious zanies. After all, you’re an enlightened young 
man —a violinist, they tell me; you can’t take your 
Judaism any more seriously than I take my baptism. 
Come — have a glass of vodka.’ 

‘Then, you won’t inform?’ David breathed. 

‘Not unless you publish seditious Yiddish. Keep your 
pistols out of print. If my own skin is safe, that doesn’t 
mean I’m made of stone like these Tartar devils. 
Landlord, the vodka. We’ll drink confusion to them.’ 

‘I—I have none,’ stammered the landlord. ‘I 
haven’t the right.’ : 

‘There are no rights in Russia,’ said the censor good- 
humouredly. 

The landlord furtively produced a big bottle. 

‘But the idea of asking me to join the Self-Defence !’ 
chuckled the burly Jew. ‘You might as well ask me 
to play the violin!’ he added with a wink. 

David felt this was the first really sympathetic hearer 
he had met that morning. 


VII 


The vodka and a good three-course dinner (Plotk« 
for fish, Lockschen for soup, and Zrazy for joint) brought 


2H 


466 SAMOOBORONA 


David new courage, and again he sallied out to recruit. 
This time he sought the market-place—a_badly- 
paved square, bordered with small houses and con- 
gested with stalls and a grey, kaftaned crowd, amid 
which gleamed the blue blouses of the ungodly younger 
generation. He had hitherto addressed himself to the 
classes — he would hear the voice of the people. 

On every side the voices babbled of the Duma — 
babbled happily, as though the word was a new re- 
ligious charm or a witch’s incantation. Crude political 
conversations broke out amid all the business of the 
mart. He had only to listen to know how he would be 
answered. 

A blacksmith buying a new hammer stayed to argue 
with the vendor. 

“We must put our trust in the Constitutional Demo- 
crats.’ 

‘And why in the Cadets? Give me the Democrats.’ 

‘Nay, we must put our trust only in the Czar.’ 
(This came from the Rabbi’s wife, who was cheapening 
fish at the next stall.) 

‘For shame, Rebbitzin! Put not your trust in 
Princes.’ 

The bystanders hushed down the text-quoter —a 
fuzzy-headed butcher-boy. 

‘Miserable Monarchists!’ he sneered. ‘We Jews 
will have no peace till the Republicans ——’ 

‘A Republic without Socialism!’ interrupted a girl 


SAMOOBORONA 467 


with a laundry basket. ‘What good’s that? Wait 
till the N. S.’s f 

‘The D. R.’s are the only 
tery pedlar. 

‘And who but the Labour group promises equal 








’ interrupted a phylac- 


rights to all nationalities?’ interrupted a girl in spec- 
tacles. ‘Trust the Trudowaja : 

‘To the devil with the Labour Parties!’ said an old- 
clo? man. ‘Look how the Bundists have betrayed us. 
First they were bone of our bone; now it is they who 





by their recklessness provoke the pogroms.’ 

The blacksmith brought his hammer down upon the 
stall. ‘There is only one party to trust, and that’s 
the C. D.’s,’ he repeated. 

‘Bourgeois!’ simultaneously hissed the Republican 
youth and the Socialist lass. 

‘My children!’ It was the bland voice of Moses the 
Shamash (beadle). ‘Violence leads to naught. Even 
the Viborg Manifesto was a mistake. As a member of 
the Party of Peaceful Regeneration : 

‘Peaceful Regeneration?’ shouted the blacksmith. 
‘A Jew ally himself with the Reactionary Right, with 
the ——!’ 

A Cossack galloped recklessly among the serried 
stalls. The Jews scattered before him like dogs. The 
member of the P. P. R. crawled under a barrow. 
Even the blacksmith froze up. David drew the moral 
when the Cossack had disappeared. 





468 SAMOOBORONA 


‘Peaceful Regeneration!’ he cried. ‘There will be 
no Regeneration for you till you have the courage to 
leave Russian politics alone and to fight for your- 
selves.’ 

‘Ah, you’re a Maximalist,’ said the beadle. 

‘No, I am only a Minimalist. I merely want the 
minimum — that we save our own lives.’ 

It was asking too little. The poor Russian Jews, 
like the rich Russian Jews, were largely occupied in 
saving the world, or, at least, Holy Russia. Crushed by 
such an excess of Christianity, David wandered round 
the market-place, looking into the bordering houses. 
In one of the darkest and dingiest sat a cobbler tapping 
at shoes, surrounded by sprawling children. 

‘Peace be to you,’ called David. 

‘Peace have I always,’ rejoined the cobbler cheerily. 

David looked at the happy dirty children; he had 
seen their like torn limb from limb. ‘But have you 
thought of the danger of a pogrom ?’ he said. 

‘I have heard whispers of it,’ said the cobbler. 
‘But we Chassidim have no fear. Our wonder-rabbi, 
who has power over all the spheres, will utter a word, 
and f 

‘A Tsaddik (wonder-rabbi) was killed in the last 
pogrom,’ said David brutally. ‘You must join a Self- 
Defence band.’ 

The cobbler ceased to tap. ‘What! Go for a soldier! 
When the Rebbe caused me to draw a high number!’ 





SAMOOBORONA 469 


‘Our soldiering is not for Russia, but to save us from 
Russia. We must all join together !’ 

‘Me join the Mzsnagdim !’ cried the cobbler in horror. 
‘Never will I join with those who deny the Master-of- 
the-Name.’ , 

David sighed. Suddenly he perceived a stalwart 
Jew lounging at a neighbouring door. He moved 
towards him, and broached the subject afresh. The 
lounger shook his head. ‘You may persuade that 
foolish Chassid,’ said he, ‘but you cannot expect the 
rest of us to join with these heretics, these godless, 
dancing dervishes, who are capable even of saying the 
afternoon prayer in the evening !’ 

In the next house lived a Maskzil (Intellectual), who 
looked up from his Hebrew newspaper to ask how he 
could be associated with a squad of young ignoramuses. 
His neighbour was a Karaite, drifted here from another 
community. The Karaite pointed out that Self- 
Defence was unnecessary in his case, as his sect was 
scarcely regarded by the authorities as Jewish. There 
were other motley Jews living round the market- 
place —a Lithuanian, who refused to co-operate with 
the Polish ‘sweet-tooths,’ and who was in turn stigma- 
tized by a Pole as ‘peel-barley,’ in scarification of his 
reputedly stingy diet. A man from Odessa dismissed 
them both as ‘cross-heads.’ It was impossible to 
unite such mutually superior elements. Again weary 
and heart-sick, he returned towards the inn. 


470 SAMOOBORONA 


Vill 


But his way was blocked by a turbulent stream of 
Jewish boys pouring out of the primary school. They 
seemed to range in years between eight and twelve, 
but even the youngest face wore a stamp of age, and 
though the air vibrated with the multiplex chatter 
which accompanies the exodus of cramped and muted 
pupils, the normal elements of joyousness, of horse- 
play, of individual freakishness, were absent. It was 
a common agitation that loosed all these little tongues 
and set all these little ears listening to the passionate 
harangues of ringleaders. Instead of hurrying home, 
the schoolboys lingered in knots round their favourite 
orators. A premature gravity furrowed all the childish 
foreheads. 

With one of these orators David dimly felt familiar, 
and after listening for a few minutes to the lad’s 
tirade against the ‘autocracy of the school director’ 
and the ‘bureaucratic methods of the inspector,’ it 
dawned upon him that the little demagogue was his 
own landlord’s son. 

‘Hullo, Kalman!’ he cried in surprise. 

‘Hullo, comrade!’ replied the boy graciously. 

‘So you’re a revolutionary, eh?’ said David, smiling. 

‘All my class belongs to the Junior Bund,’ replied 
the boy gravely. 

‘Then you’re not so peaceful as papa!’ 


SAMOOBORONA 471 


The lad’s aplomb and dignity deserted him. He 
blushed furiously, and hung his head in shame of his 
Moderate parent. 

‘Never mind, Comrade Kalman,’ said another boy, 
slapping his shoulder consolingly. ‘‘We’ve all got 
some shady relative or another.’ 

A shrill burst of applause relieved the painful situa- 
tion. ‘Turning his head, David found all the childish 
eyes converged upon a single figure, a bulging-headed 
lad who had sprung into a sudden position of eminence 
— upon an egg-box. He was clothed in the blue blouse 
of Radicalism and irreligion, and the faint down upon 
his upper lip suggested that he must be nearing fifteen. 

‘Comrades!’ he was crying. ‘In my youth I my- 
self was head boy at this school of yours, but even 
in those old days there was the same brutal autocracy. 
Your only remedy is a general strike. You must join 
the Syndical Anarchists.’ 

More shrill cheers greeted this fiery counsel. The 
members of the Junior Bund waved their satchels 
frenziedly. Only the landlord’s son stood mute and 
frowning. | 

‘You don’t agree with him,’ said David. 

‘No,’ answered the little Bundist gravely. ‘I follow 
Comrade Berl. But this fellow is popular because he 
was expelled from the Warsaw gymnasium as a suspect.’ 

‘You must strike!’ repeated the juvenile agitator. 
‘A strike is the only way of impressing the proletarian 


472 SAMOOBORONA 


psychology. You must all swear to attend school 
no more till your demands are granted.’ 

‘We swear !’ came from all sides in a childish treble. 
But the frown on the brow of the landlord’s son grew 
darker. 

‘It is well, comrades,’ said the orator. ‘ Your suc- 
cess will be a lesson to your. elders; too. Only by 
applying the Marxian philosophy of history can we 
upset the bourgeois Weltanschauung.’ 

The landlord’s son reached the roof of the egg-box 
with one angry bound and stood beside the agitator. 
‘Marx is an old fogey!’ he shouted. ‘What’s the 
good of a passive strike? Let us make a demon- 
stration against the director; let us ——’ 

‘Who told you that?’ sneered the orator. ‘Com- 
rade Berl or Comrade Schmerl ?’ 

The boy missed the sarcasm of the rhyme. ‘ You 
know Schmerl’s a mere milk-blooded “ Attainer,”’ he 
said angrily. 

‘Believe me,’ was the soothing reply, ‘even beyond 
the Five Freedoms the boycott is a better ‘‘ Attainer ” 
than the bomb.’ 

‘Traitor! Bourgeois!’ And a third boy jumped 
upon the egg-box. He had red hair and flaming 
eyes. ‘If Russia is to be saved,’ he shrieked, ‘ it 
will be neither by the Fivefold Formula of Freedom 
nor by the Fourfold Suffrage, but by the Integralists, 
who alone maintain the purity of the Social Revolu- 


SAMOOBORONA 473 


tionary programme, as it was before the party degen- 
erated into Maximalists and Mini ‘ 

Here the egg-box collapsed under the weight of the 
three orators, and they sprawled in equal ignominy. 
But the storm was now launched. A score of the 
schoolboys burst into passionate abstract discussion. 
The unity necessary to the school strike was shattered 
into fragments. 

David ploughed his way sadly through the mimetic 
mob of youngsters, who were yet not all apes and 
parrots, he reflected. Just as Jewry had always had 
its boy Rabbis, its infant phenomenons of the pulpit, 
prodigies of eloquence and holy learning, so it now 
had its precocious politicians and its premature soci- 
ologists. He was tempted for a moment to try his 
recruiting spells upon the juvenile Integralist, whose 
red hair reminded him of his girl cousin’s, but it 
seemed cruel to add to the lad’s risks. Besides, had 
not the boy already proclaimed — like his seniors — 





that Russia, not Jewry, was to be saved? 

It was an hour of no custom when he got back to 
the inn, so that he was scarcely surprised to find host 
and hostess alike invisible. He sat down, and began 
to write a melancholy Report to Headquarters, but a 
mysterious and persistent knocking prevented any con- 
centration upon his task. Presently he threw down 
his. pen, and went to find out what was the matter. 
The noises drew him downwards. 


474 SAMOOBORONA 


The landlord, alarmed at the footsteps, blew out 
his light. 

‘It’s only I,’ said David. 

The landlord relit the candle. David saw a cellar 
strewn with iron bars, instruments, boxes, and a con- 
fused heap of stones. 

‘Ah, hiding the vodka,’ said David, with a smile. 

‘No, we are widening and fortifying the cellar — 
also provisioning the loft.’ 

‘ Samooborona ?’ said David. 

‘Precisely — and a far more effective form than 
yours, my young hot-head.’ 

‘Perhaps you are right,’ said David wearily. He 
went back to his Report. He was glad to think that 
the little Bundist had an extra chance. After all, he 
had achieved something, he would save some lives. 
Perhaps he would end. by preaching the landlord’s 
way — passive Samooborona was better than none. 

1D. 


But the Report refused to write itself. It was too 
dismal to confess he had not collected a kopeck or one 
recruit. He picked up a greasy fragment of a Russian 
newspaper, and read with a grim smile that the Octo- 
brists had excluded Jews from their meetings. That 
reminded him of Erbstein the Banker, who had bidden 
him put his trust inthem. Would the Banker be more. 
susceptible now, under this disillusionment? Alas! the 





SAMOOBORONA 475 


question was, could a Banker be disillusioned? To be 
disillusioned is to admit having been mistaken, and 
Bankers, like Popes, were infallible. 

David bethought himself instead of the owlish 
Mizrachi, his. visit to whom had been left unfinished. 

He threw down his pen, and repaired again to the 
house with the Ark and the telephone. 

But as he reached Cantberg’s door it opened sud- 
denly, and a young man shot out. 

‘Never, father!’ he was shrieking —‘ Never do I 
enter this house again.’ And he banged the door upon 
the owl, and rushed into David’s arms. 

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. 

‘It is my fault,’ murmured David politely. ‘I was 
just going to see your father.’ 

‘You'll find him in a fiendish aber He cannot 
argue without losing it.’ 

‘I hope you’ve not had a serious difference.’ 

‘He’s such a bigoted Zionist — he cannot understand 
that Zionism is ein tiberwundener Stand punkt. 

‘IT know.’ 

‘Ah!’ said the young maneagerly. ‘Then you can 
understand how I have suffered since I evolved from 
Zionism. 

‘What are you now, if I may ask?’ 

‘The only thing that a self-respecting Jew can be — 
a Sejmist, of course !’ 

‘A Jewish Party?’ asked David eagerly. After all 


476 SAMOOBORONA 


the enthusiasm for Russian politics and world politics 
he was now pleased with even this loquacious form of 
Self- Defence. | 

‘Come and have a glass of tea; I will tell you all 
about it,’ said the young man, soothed by the prospect 
of airing his theories. ‘We will go to Friedman’s inn 
— the University Club, we call it, because the intellec- 
tuals generally drink there.’ 

‘With pleasure,’ said David, sniffing the chance of 
recruits. ‘But before we talk of your Party I want to 
ask whether you can join me in a branch of the Samoo- 
borona.’ 

The young man’s face grew overclouded. 

‘Our Party cannot join any other,’ he said. 

‘But mine isn’t a Party —a corps.’ 

‘Not a Party?’ 

‘No.’ r z 

‘But you have a Committee?’ 

‘Yes — but only ——’ 

‘And Branches?’ 

‘Naturally, but simply ——’ 

‘And a Party-Chest ?’ 

‘The money is only 

‘And Conferences?’ 





© Of course, but merely ——’ 
‘And you read Referats ——’ 
‘Not unless ; 
‘Surely you are a Party!’ 








SAMOOBORONA 477 


‘T tell you no. I want all Parties.’ 

‘Iam sorry. But I’m too busy just now to consider 
anything else. Our Party-Day falls next week, and 
there’s infinite work to be done.’ 

‘Work!’ cried David desperately.  ‘ What work?’ 

‘There will be many great speeches. I myself 
shall not speak beyond an hour, but that is merely 
impromptu in the debate. Our Referat-speakers 
need at least two hours apiece. We did not get 
through our last session till five in the morning. And 
there were scenes, I tell you!’ 

‘But what is there to discuss?’ 

‘What is there to discuss?’ The Sejmist looked 
pityingly at David. ‘The great question of the Duma 
elections, for one thing. To boycott or not to boycott. 
And if not, which candidates shall we support? Then 
there is the question of Jewish autonomy in the Russian 
Parliament—that is our great principle. Moreover, as 
a comparatively new Party, we have yet to thresh out 
our relations to all the existing Parties. With which 
shall we form blocs in the elections? While most are 
dangerous to the best interests of the Jewish people 
and opposed to the evolution of historic necessity, with 
some we may be able to co-operate here and there, 
where our work intersects.’ 

‘What work?’ David insisted again. 

‘Doesn’t our name tell you? We are the Voz- 
rozhdenie—the Resurrectionists—our work is an 


478 SAMOOBORONA 


unconditional historic necessity springing from the 
evolution of ——!’ 

The door of the inn arrested the Sejmist harangue. 
As he pushed it open, a babel of other voices made 
continuance impossible. The noise came entirely from 
a party of four, huddled in a cloud of cigarette-smoke 
near the stove. In one of the four David recognised 
the tea-merchant of the morning, but the tea-merchant 
seemed to have no recollection of David. He was still 
expatiating upon the Individuality of Israel, which, 
it appeared, was an essence independent of place and 
time. He nodded, however, to the young Sejmist, 
observing ironically: 

‘Behold, the dreamer cometh!’ 

‘I a dreamer, forsooth!’ The young man was 
vexed to be derided before his new acquaintance. ‘It 
is you Achad-Haamists who must wake up.’ 

The tea-merchant smiled with a superior air. ‘The 
Vozrozhdenie would do well to study Achad-Haam’s 
philosophy. Then they would understand tnat their 
strivings are bound to lead to self-constriction, not 
self-expression. You were saying that, too, weren’t 
you, Witsky ?’ 

Witsky, who was a young lawyer, demurred. ‘ What 
I said was,’ he explained to the Sejmist, ‘that in your 
search for territorial-proletariat practice you Sejmists 
have altogether lost the theory. Conversely the S. S.’s 
have sacrificed territorial practice to their territorial 





SAMOOBORONA 479 


theory. In our party alone do you find the synthesis 
of the practical and the ideal. It alone f 

‘May I ask whom you speak for?’ intervened 
David. 

‘The newest Jewish Social Democratic Artisan 
Party of Russia!’ replied Witsky proudly. 





‘ Are you the newest?’ inquired David drily. 
‘And the best. If we desire Palestine as the scene 


of our social regeneration, it is because the uncondi- 
? 





tional historic necessity 

The Sejmist interrupted sadly: ‘I see that our 
Conference will have to decide against relations with 
you. 

‘Pooh! The S. D. A.’s will only be the stronger 
for isolation. Have we not of ourselves severed our 
relations with the D.K.’s? In the evolution of the 
forces of the people f 

‘It is not right, Witsky, that you should mislead a 
stranger,’ put in his sallow, spectacled neighbour. 
‘Or perhaps you misconceive the genetic moments 


) 





of your own programme. What evolution is 
clearly leading to is a Jewish autonomous party in 
Parliament.’ 





‘But we also say ’ began the other two. 

The sallow, spectacled man waved them down 
wearily. ‘Who but the P. N. D.’s are the synthesis of 
the historic necessities? We subsume the Conserva- 


tive elements of the Spojnia Narodowa National League 


480 SAMOOBORONA 


and of the Party of Reali Politics with the Reform ele- 
ments of the Democratic League and the Progressive 
Democrats. Consequently ——’ 

‘But the true Polish Party ——’ began Witsky. 

‘The Kolo Polskie (Polish Ring) is half anti-Semitic,’ 
began the Sejmist. The three were talking at once. 
Through the chaos a thin piping voice penetrated 
clearly. It came from the fourth member of the group 
—a clean-shaven ugly man, who had hitherto remained 
silently smoking. 

‘As a philosophic critic who sympathizes with all 
Parties,’ he said, ‘allow me to tell you, friend Witsky, 
that your programme needs unification: it stafts as 
economic, and then becomes dualistic — first inductive, 
then deductive.’ 

‘Moj Panie drogi (my dear sir),’ intervened David, 
‘if you sympathize with all Parties, you will join a 
corps for the defence of them all.’ 

‘You forget the philosophic critic equally disagrees 
with all Parties.’ 

David lost his temper at last. ‘Gentlemen,’ he 
shouted ironically, ‘one may sit and make smoke-rings 
till the Messiah comes, but I assure you there is 
only one unconditional historic necessity, and that is 
Samooborona.’ : 

And without drinking his tea— which, indeed, the 
Resurrectionist had forgotten to order—he dashed 
into the street. 


SAMOOBORONA 481 


xX 


He was but a youth, driven into action by hellish 
injustice. He had hitherto taken scant notice of all 
these Parties that had sprung up for the confusion of 
his people — these hybrid, kaleidoscopic combinations 
of Russian and Jewish politics— but as he fled from 
the philosophers through the now darkening streets, his 
every nerve quivering, it seemed to him as if the alpha- 
bet had only to be thrown about like dice to give 
always the name of some Party or other. He had a 
nightmare vision of bristling sects and pullulating fac- 
tions, each with its Councils, Federations, Funds, Con- 
ferences, Party-Days, Agenda, Referats, Press-Organs, 
each differentiating itself with meticulous subtlety from 
all the other Parties, each defining with casuistic 
minuteness its relation to every contemporary prob- 
lem, each equipped with inexhaustible polyglot orators 
speechifying through tumultuous nights. 

Well, it could not be helped. In the terrible 
nebulous welter in which his people found them- 
selves, it was not unnatural that each man should 
grope towards his separate ray of light. The Rus- 
sian, too, was equally bewildered, and perhaps all 
this profusion of theories came in both from the 
same lack of tangibilities. Both peoples possessed 
nothing. 

Perhaps, indeed, the ultimate salvation of the Jews 


2I 


482 SAMOOBORONA 


lay in identifying themselves with Russia. But then, 
who could tell that the patriots who welcomed them 
to-day as co-workers would not reject them when the 
cause was won? Perhaps there was no hope outside 
preserving their own fullest identity. Poor bewildered 
Russian Jew, caught in the bewilderments both of the 
Russian and the Jew, and tangled up inextricably in 
the double confusion of interlacing coils! 

The Parties, then, were perhaps inevitable; he must 
make his account with them. How if he formed a 
secret Samooborona Committee, composed equally of 
representatives of all Parties? But, then, how could he 
be sure of knowing them all? He might offend one by 
omitting or miscalling it; they formed and re-formed 
like clouds on the blue. A new Party, too, might spring 
up overnight. He might give deadly affront by ignor- 
ing this Jonah’s gourd. Even as he thus mused, there 
came to him the voices of two young men, the one 
advocating a P. P. L.—a new Party of Popular 
Liberty, —the other insisting that the new Volks- 
gruppe of all anti-Zionist parties was an uncondi- 
tional historic necessity. He groaned. | 

It seemed to him as he stumbled blindly through 
the ill-paved alleys that a plague of doctors of philos- 
ophy had broken out over the Pale, doctrinaires spin- 
ning pure logic from their vitals, and fighting bitterly 
against the slightest deviation from the pattern of 
their webs. But the call upon Israel was for Action. 





SAMOOBORONA 483 


Was it, he wondered with a flash of sympathy, that 
Israel was too great for Action; too sophisticated a 
people for so primitive and savage a function; too 
set in the moulds of an ancient scholastic civilization, 
so that, even when Action was attempted, it was turned 
and frozen into Philosophy? Or was it rather that 
eighteen centuries of poring over the Talmud had un- 
fitted them for Action, not merely because the habit of 
applying the whole braiti-force to religious minutie 
led to a similar intellectualization of contemporary 
problems — of the vast new material suddenly opened 
up to their sharpened brains — but also because many of 
these religious problems related only to the time when 
Israel and his Temple flourished in Palestine, the 
academic leisure and scrupulous discrimination that 
might be harmlessly devoted to the dead past had been 
imported into the burning present — into things that 
mattered for life or death. 

Yes, the new generation chopped the logic of Zionism 
or Socialism, as the old argued over the ritual of burnt- 
offerings whose smoke had not risen since the year 70 
of the Christian era, or over the decisions of Babylonian 
Geonim, no stone of whose city remained standing. 
The men of to-day had merely substituted for the world 
of the past the world of the future, and so there had 
arisen logically-perfect structures of Zionism without 
Zion, Jewish Socialism without a Jewish social order, 
Labour Parties without votes or Parliaments. The 


484 SAMOOBORONA 


habit of actualities had been lost; what need of them 
when concepts provided as much intellectual stimulus? 
Would Israel never return to reality, never find solid 
ground under foot, never look eye to eye upon life? 

But as the last patch of sunset faded out of the strip 
of wintry sky, David suddenly felt infinitely weary of 
reality; a great yearning came over him for that very 
unreality, that very ‘dead past’ in which pious Jewry 
still lived its happiest hours. Oh, to forget the Parties, 
the jangle of politics and philosophies, the éohu-bohu of 
his unhappy day! He must bathe his soul in an hour’s 
peace; he would go back like a child to/the familiar 
study-house of his youth, to the Beth Hamedrash 
where the greybeards pored over the g great worm-eaten 
folios, and the youths rocked in their expository in- 
cantations. ‘There lay the magic world of fantasy and 
legend that had been his people’s true home, that had 
kept them sane and cheerful through eighteen cen- 
turies of tragedy —a watertight world into which no 
drop of outer reality could ever trickle. There lay 
Zion and the Jordan, the Temple and the Angels; 
there the Patriarchs yet hovered protectively over their 
people. Perhaps the Milovka study-house boasted even 
Cabbalists starving themselves into celestial visions 
and graduating for the Divine kiss. How infinitely 
restful after the Milovka market-place! No more, for 
that day at least, would he prate of Self-Defence and 
the horrible Modern. 








SAMOOBORONA 485 


He asked the way to the Beth Hamedrash. How 
fraternally the sages and the youths would greet him! 
They would inquire in the immemorial formula, ‘What 
town comest thou from?’ And when he told them, 
they would ask concerning its Rabbi and what news 
there was. And ‘news,’ David remembered with a 
tearful smile, meant ‘new interpretations of texts.’ 
Yes, this was all the ‘news’ that ever ruffled that 
peaceful world. Man lived only for the Holy Law; 
the world had been created metely that the Law might 
be studied; new lights upon its woids and letters were 
the only things that could matter to a sensible soul. 
Time and again he had raged against the artificiality 
of this quietist cosmos, accusing it of his people’s 
paralysis, but to-night every fibre of him yearned for 
this respite from the harsh reality. He rummaged his 
memory for ‘news’—for theological ingeniosities, 
textual wire-drawings that might have escaped the 
lore of Milovka; and as one who draws nigh to a great 
haven, he opened the door of the Beth Hamedrash, and, 
murmuring ‘Peace be to you,’ dropped upon a bench 
before an open folio whose commentaries and super- 
commentaries twined themselves lovingly in infinite 
convolutions round its holy text. Immediately he 
was surrounded by a buzzing crowd of youths and 
ancients. 

‘Which Party are you of?’ they clamoured eagerly. 


486 SAMOOBORONA 


XI 


The pogrom arrived. But it arrived in a new form 
for which even David was unprepared. Perhaps in 
consequence of the Rabbi’s warning to the Governor, 
Self-Defence was made ridiculous. No Machiavellian 
paraphernalia of agents provocateurs, no hooligans with 
false grey beards, masquerading as Jewish rioters or 
blasphemers. Artillery was calmly brought up against 
the Jewish quarter, as though Milovka were an enemy’s 
town. 4 | 

As the shells began to burst over the close-packed 
houses, David felt grimly that an ecoriomic Providence 
had saved him from wasting his time in training 
pistoliers. 

The white-faced landlord, wringing his hands and 
saying his Vidui (death-bed confession), offered him 
and his violin-case a place in the cellar, but he preferred 
to climb to the roof, from which, with the aid of a small 
glass, he had a clear view of the cordon: drawn round 
the doomed quarter. A ricocheting cannon-ball crashed 
through the chimney-pots at his side, but he did not 
budge. His eyes were glued upon a figure he had espied 
amid the cannon. 

It was Ezekiel Leven, his whilom lieutenant, with 
whom he had dreamed of Maccabean deeds. ‘The 
new conscript, in the uniform of an artilleryman, was 
carefully taking sight with a Gatling gun. 





SAMOOBORONA 487 


‘Poor Ezekiel!’ David cried. ‘Yours is the most 
humorous fate of all! But have you forgotten there 
is still one form of Samooborona left?’ And with an 
ironic laugh he turned his pistol upon himself. 

The great guns boomed on hour after hour. When 
the bombardment was over, the peace of the devil lay 
over the Ghetto of Milovka. Silent were all the fiery 
orators of all the letters of the alphabet; silent the 
Polish patriots and the lovers of Zion and the lovers 
of mankind; silent the bourgeois and the philosophers, 
the timber-merchants and the horse-dealers, the Bankers 
and the Bundists; silent the Socialists and the Demo- 
crats; silent even the burly censor, and the careless 
Karaite and the cheerful Chassid; silent the landlord 
and his revolutionary infant in their fortified cellar; 
silent the Rabbi in his study, and the crowds in the 
market-place. 

The same unconditional historic necessity had over- 
taken them all. 7 


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